What We Say When We Say Nothing

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glass

 

What We Say When We Say Nothing

The rain has died and everything follows:
black, white – the law’s supposition. Their bodies

glisten only in memory. One says look at me from the steel
table as the scale registers the heart’s

weight. Another cries uncertainty in the most certain
of circumstances — laid open, emptied then closed,

the simple mechanics of ritual and form. Throughout my
dreams a line of dark figures shimmer in the cold

corridor, end-to-end, supine and unmoving, assigning
loss. I have fifty-six years and more questions than

answers. The drought testifies to a wrong. A woman
visits her son, a father weeps. Our silence, complicit.

My poem, “What We Say When We Say Nothing,” was published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry  in January 2017. Many thanks to editor Anthony Frame for taking this piece and aligning it with some great poems.

23 thoughts on “What We Say When We Say Nothing”

  7. Yes, this poem is exquisitely visceral–forgive the pun. No, the play on words works here–all humor aside. Like another commenter noted, heart as an organ–not as an emotion allows me to see both.

    I’ve challenged myself to avoid using heart as an emotion or metonym in my poetry. Robert, you’ve set a high bar.

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