Onomatopoeia — by Thomas Lux

The word sounds like the thing.
The sound of the word next to
the sound of another word
sounds like the thing feels
or you desire it to feel. You want
this alive
from its insides
and the mind, the denotative, the dictionary
means naught: what you want
to be known must be known
cellularly, belly-wise,
or on the tongue: cerulean blue,
for example, or punch drunk.
Those who live elsewhere
than in their bodies don't buy it, don't like it,
this in-the-body; the science
and the math tests on it
are yet inconclusive.
There's always this little humming
beneath the surface
of the painting, the dance, the play
(the good ones) that tells your heart
that it — the painting, the dance, the play — tells
a truth: dewlap, dewlap,
it's dawn's time, it says — the sound
provides the thing its lungs, mouth,
and blood-beat. The sound, the noise of the sound, is
the thing — the deaf can hear it,
the blind can see it, this tuning fork
beneath the breastbone, sweetly
accompanying its song.