Betty Stanton

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Walls

I

The wall is older than the prayers
every stone remembers, each is
a tongue pressed against it, a mouth
finding silence too holy to name.
I bring my small griefs, my folded
notes, the ache of my mother’s hands
and slip them between cracks. Dust
falls around my fingertips. Answers
my bloodied knuckles, my shaking.

II

Every night the wall dreams of soft bodies
leaned against it in the dark, heat blooming
like moss in laughter, argument, soft bruises
of palms as they splay over brick.  In dreams
it has a mouth, swallows their noise, their lips.
Every morning the paint bubbles and inside
each blister a breath trapped mid-sigh, yours
or mine. A hundred voices still trying to speak. 

III

The house has learned to listen to walls
that only hum their truth: the soft static
of hands clenched, prayers whispered to
plaster. You press your ear to the seam
and hear the ghosts naming themselves,
all the lies you have forgotten, the slow
exhale of dust. Sometimes the wall swells
like a lung breathing what is left of you.

Betty Stanton (she/her) is a Pushcart nominated writer who lives and teaches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her MFA from the University of Texas – El Paso and also holds a doctorate in educational leadership. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review. @fadingbetty.bsky.social