DEEP INSIDE THE SILENCE I HATE, THE SILENCE I LOVE

I go through my rooms in the dark without stumbling,
familiar as a cat with the coffee table, calmed by its solid dimensions,
the text of hushed contrasts, cold wood under my bare feet,
the prickle from rugs I spread to muffle the floor.

Yet it is sweet to hear sound in a house where one lives alone,
the walls settling into the vault of earth, a puzzled fly’s sizzle at the window.
I won’t deny it, I’m afraid. Something euphoric is trying to enter
through a cleft.

Sometimes wind shoulders past the door.
The softest footfall gets louder than blood in the ear.
What would I give up for the friction
of human language, the flesh and argument of company?

A woman praised my roses, their musk and size and placement in a crystal vase.
Though she had not struck its brittle edges, her words went clamoring
through every room. When she left,
the air closed around her space, and I moved freely through.