Telling a Hard Love Story
Our hushing in the night, the sill jar-cracked just a sliver
To let the whispers escape like so many breezes into the night
Dispersed into leaves holding secrets.
We handle roars so loud no one knows what they say,
And everyone around us closes their eyes light-tight to keep out the heat,
Covering their ears as though they could deny entrance to an earthquake.
Two poles, a coin tossed in the night, flashing and then falling
Cold and hard on rock:
A sound so flat, so sharp, you were not sure you heard it.
It was not music: there was no sound that came before, and none followed,
So one was not sure what one did or did not remember.
[That is how music works, wrapping itself around us in memory:
we remember the sound even as it passes.
Without memory this sound now means nothing.]
The silver tick of your watch is not music either;
It counts out the beats of our time:
Hearts are infinite and do not wait for coins tossed up to land.