2026.09.24
Repetition Code
My mother said each thing she meant three times
so that the world, which steals one word in three,
would leave her two, and two would outvote one.
Come here. Come here. Come here. It worked on me.
It is the oldest code: say it again.
Let the noise take a copy, any copy;
the other two close over where it was
the way a family eats around a chair.
But it forgives one error, never two.
With two, the vote goes cleanly the wrong way
and nothing in the verdict sounds like doubt.
In a language that has only two words
the wrong word is always the other one.
I know what she told me. I know. I know.