Each man has a quiet that revolves
around him as he beats his head against the earth. But I am laughing
hard and furious. I pour a glass of pepper vodka
and toast the gray wall. I say we were
never silent. We read each other’ s lips and said
one word four times. And laughed four times
in loving repetition. We read each other’ s lips to uncover
the poverty of laughter. Touch the asphalt with fingers to hear the cool earth of Vasenka
Deposit ears into the raindrops on a fisherman’ s tobacco hair.
And whoever listens to me: being
there, and not being, lost and found
and lost again: Thank you for the feather on my tongue,
thank you for our argument that ends,
thank you for my deafness, Lord, such fire
from a match you never lit.