Still Life

But what night isn’t like this?

I’ve always been since earliest version of life

Silent

Like the dinner table

Carrying tedious things

On my head—

When there are people talking over

And when the voices vanish,

Life comes out of my mouth

Holding a spatula

… it looks just like me

If only I knew how to cook.

I’ve experienced imaginations of the

End of the world.

So I’ve never been happy.

But I’ve been content in small spaces-

Queues, linen back seat of a Hyundai

That tiny store. North face.

A girl’s heart.

Each day I enter life at the same moment:

You alone in your room at midnight

Are in your nighties beautiful

As how people stop to watch the moon together

The night is…what again?

Listen: the slow parade of wind, the fan

And the refrigerator, humming.

The mouse in your cupboard

I have always sounded like this.