CALL ME BELOVED

Thanks to Joyce for the jolt needed to start today’s poem.

the vocabulary of truth is silent.
you need to watch everything but the lips
to pull it out, slowly – like drawing a loose thread
from a favorite shirt, ragged & older than you –
a gentle, pleading pull at uncertainty.

you need to watch the hands, watch how the I love yous
are orchestrated with a delicateness words conceal
but the body betrays. I can see it conducted all within
the rise and fall of your brow, it’s written across your eyes.
I’m learning the book of you every day, how your fingers
turn through pages, or the way the soles of your feet
fall upon the floorboards, creaking out whispers from the wood.

these are the whispers you listen to.
the vocabulary of truth is tucked away here,
tied to the tarnish and dregs of our lives
like gleaming bits of string, which I collect
for fear I’ll never find more – I hoard them,
keep them together with your secret foot-fall,
your gentle eyes that cannot lie to me, now –

it is why the car windows should always be lowered
as the weather clears. the air is pregnant with it, while
it rushes past the car as a fast white noise –
from time to time you can grasp a murmur,
a word or two let out peaceful and slow like a sigh.