It said so in the sleep
but who was listening,
who can testify

and who was sleeping?
The radical explanation
is usually the best—

ink blot, gunshot, howl?
She thought she heard an owl
and why not, night,

night has its way with us,
voices and forgetting,
creaking stairs, the moon.

I’m trying to remember,
that’s all, so much gets lost
in the algorithms of lust,

fear, shivering under the sheet.
What did who say when,
twisted branches of context,

not one word remains.
How am I to understand
the sun if I lost the dark,

am I to make do with light
and air and food like
any animal? Animule

my father used to say,
he taught me the haughtiness
of play, play till all the meanings

rub away and leave you free
again, he taught me silence
is the deepest conversation.

29 November 2020