"It was her voice that made the sky
acutest at its vanishing." - Wallace Stevens

Sorry I'm speaking to no one,
But those knotted-up covers looked a lot like you.

I'm glad I didn't wake you with the information that

Breaths catch in my lungs like oily rags
In the pockets of tired old mechanics
And that tears don't stain things
But rather evaporate as if you never cried,
Or as if the world were, at a molecular level,
And that I have not mowed the lawn
And had intended to nap.

I crawl amid what I thought was you and wait for the selfsame

Voice that split the sky and sea
To chip this buzzing sleep from me.