Crouching with you in the black
as men tear each other apart and enter tents uninvited.
But I will never really know.
Around us, so many flapping mouths—
Tongues flash and flounder, bear gleaming teeth
while sounds tumble from their open pockets,
scraping floors
when there is nothing worth saying.
As I show you with my hands and point at text on the table,
I am really trying to tell you with my eyes
that I know the still tongue that envelops
and rocks you in the night,
pulls you in the hole that holds you.
I want to pack it all into a ball,
roll it toward your aching eyes,
show you that your kind of human is most beautiful.
Instead, I pack my books,
hand you a pencil and
hope you will do your homework.
You arrest me with a look that says
Why are you leaving me already?
But I cannot stay.
Every night now,
as I am lulled by the silence that used to pull me
toward the Really-Alone-in-the-Universe,
I am sitting outside a dark tent with you
breaking up the wood from our boats
and stoking our soundless stories in fire.
We are the oldest tellers out there, you and I,
out there in the black.
[Editor's Note: The photo above is credited to Sam Segal.]
