He sits rigidly, like
a calcified projection
on his porch chair
as four butterflies
churn the invisible
atmospheric milk,
indifferent to language.

For he is the type of verb
that disdains noise,
motion or being.

He listens to a radio
tuned to silence,
the acoustics of
emotion, lacking adverbs
or adjectives, pure
as an oblivious ******.

He listens with intensity              
to that envelope
of silence and says
nothing, knowing that
words cost a great deal
and syntax calls
for a life sentence
ending with a period.

Already, the tense
of time stalks him.

Better to leave
the unsaid unheard,
that single noun:
                           death.

  ~mce