Let me speak your name.
Let me feel the movement of my tongue within my mouth
Of lips stretched and jaw pushed slightly forward
Of the breath from my lungs shaped and formed
Into noise and phonemes and syllables and words
Into proper nouns signifying you.

Two names with marvelous utility
To recall you from memory
To bid for your attention
To speak your identity into the air
And in doing so affirm you in your tangible skin
With vibration and waves and exhalation
With the intimacy of sound spoken aloud
With the pleasure that comes from the physical act
Of declaring you.

Let me speak your name and in speaking let me sing
A secret melody whose notes rise like birds
And fall into your ears
To turn you toward me
With a smile that anticipates your own hidden song
That choruses with my name.

Let me speak your name
So I may hear my name spoken to me
From you.