God, this stupid thing
language! and what of it
anyway? What pleading sounds
can it make, as
no one listens
to poetry anymore...

no, though it turns
letters into cities
and cities into salt
and salt into
oceans and gold.

And from them:
what dumb sounds
do they make?
but a susurration, a murmur
that everyone knows:

one spiraled shell
on a beach like all spindly shells, same
thrumming thrush, rush
of blood in the ears echoed
from the heart —some string
of the loveliest of sounds—  
yet one
is enough.

One is enough, so
of course,
no one listens to poetry
anymore.