LOSING YOUR VOICE

There is no wire that connects us across these distances

these days, so when the connection breaks

it's not for faulty wire or crossed line: it's a break

in nothing. When the connection stops (itself, is stopped,

however the condition is come by) your voice is gone, or

your voice goes by degrees, fragments at first, enough for me

to hello hello at, then a crack or the sound of haze

and emptiness where your words used to be.

If the wireless connection breaks, the break is in nothing.

If nothing is broken, why have I lost your voice.

__

STRUCK

In the vein. The blood ticks
meticulous. There is no grief
is no fix.

Is a clause
at end of which
is a radius and a was.

I am where containment is.
Eye lashes out.
Grown up wish.

Oh the armament and skull,
the pixled
sedentary lull.

Held in place
behind these bricks—A waste
of wits a waste of face—

A filling for my stalking shoes
that trounce between these
three small rooms.

The clock goes stuck.
The eye's undone.
The rib hip wrist the ankle thrum.

No end to what the gods have brung:
world still whirl,
sun still plumb.

The east, west, the Canadian
are and will.
Few grace for some.

__

THE SKY

There's an "R" on the radiator. I don't suppose it stands for radiator.

A painting on the wall. Depiction of scenery.

Ferns and trees near the windows, above the tile-lined windows.

Pruned that way carefully. High up, oh leaves.

Segmented goodbye-waving leaves or hello and goodbye but the sky is not 

     coming down to them.

The sky is a fringe above.

It could be blue more often.

More often I look its way when the sun's in it

and the sun's not in it enough.

Enough is enough—enough is hiding under the shrubbery I suppose or up

under even a neighbor's tree

where I really can't see and won't I then if ever be surprised—

my God it's when the unexpected comes

that we do all we can to embrace it:

won't someone be proud of me then

(won't I be the apple of some eye).

____