Peeping Tom Hears
Charles Levendosky

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the tiny "no" you say to yourself
yet have never told anyone else.
Those doors you closed and turned
your back upon—even the portals
you didn't know you had abandoned.
Tom hears the promises you make
but intend to break. Hears, too,

when a dream drops like a pebble
down a deep well and finally plips
through a dark mirror, sending out
ripples that gradually flatten,
as the dream wafts and tumbles
into increasing dusk. Into silence.
Such a deep "no." So many deep "no"s

accumulate like layers of silt at
the lower fathoms of a life. Weigh
it down. Hears even those goodbyes
that lips never speak: the quiet
defections of love, of trust, of
spirit. Unacknowledged finalities
that settle like too many moonless

nights on those who search
for a child lost anywhere—
perhaps no further than within.