Of late you've taken
to staring past 
fork-strewn dinner plates; 

tines pinging like tuning forks, 
precise and crystalline: 

from scratches on writing pads, 
to clacking on fading keyboard tiles, 
to taps on smudged touch screens -- 

thoughts and feelings exiled, martyred 
for existence beyond skull and ribs. 

Of late your chin
bobs involuntarily
to strains of melodies; 

countering the blare of radio beats, and
no one sees this march to your own drums.

Curiosity killed no cat, but martyrs, by
betrayal, our most private thoughts
and feelings are divulged.*



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