I hear singing,
wait not singing,
so much as vibration
coming from this place.
Strange as whales in the deep.

Somber and embarrassing.
Like looking down the street
just after walking out on the person
who meant the most to you.

Or letting a parent’s final call
lapse to voicemail
in defiance of the end
long ago built into every beginning.

Nothing driven by nostalgia
will ever truly satisfy us.

So we cling to what we know.
Shaving against the grain of our own salvation
with the heartbreaking clarity of
a raw summer night.

As if the unreasonable silence
of each footstep
lets the world become a little more itself.

I thought of you today,
and felt a burst of energy like a wound.