Come, to hear.

Hear what?

Hear what’s inside you.

Strange you would

say that.

It puts me in a cloud cover:

silence, seeing nothing either.

You know me better

than anyone,

lost,

the champion miler.

Your being here

shuts me down,

yet don’t go away.

I have to start all over,

knowing nothing.

Let me just lean backward

against this rock.

I look across the sand

to the sea and hear its

raucous surf.

This inlet rock that supports

me

says nothing.

From Allan Cox’s collection, “Thin Wall of Radiance.”

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