the hush of it

one:

moon—the truth is

I’m more like you

than I’m wanted

 to be.

This hush

 of you.

  It’s like the ache

of the wait

 of a cube

of sugar,

 sweating a letting

go into an afternoon

that’s been too humid

for hot tea—

but anticipates

it all the same: the formal

 linen, small spoon.  The music

of dissolving.   The all of it a going out

to the rim and bumping back

again, entirely the same,

entirely different.

two:

moon, sometimes

 I want the plunge

 of you

 to close over me

the way it did that summer

I was nine

and the Oarweed

floated like a girl’s

 long hair and I went

 beneath it all

and saw

 how I had to begin living

in a house

of noise. 

Surfacing

 was arduous

through the tangled

hair, the tide pushing

in…

three:

Drowning’s quiet,

isn’t it moon.

  It’s the coming up

that's loud.

The surged push of it.

The alone of it.

The utter blabber

and screech of it.

It seems an eruption

 of secrecy,

especially when

the sweet’s been

dissolved in a too large cup

 and is poured out in a trough

for the gluttonous

to slurp and let drip

down their chins.

The stain on the linen

 is a teak brown,

the brown I saw

'round the rim

of my open eyes

when I came back

 up split

with that ebbing hush.

The oarweed had drifted

 away.

And nobody noticed.

nobody

noticed.