THE PAUSE

for kari edwards

These pauses
fill us up
like Joe’s cut flowers
to shore against the hollow
where talk suffocates luck and safety
to pile the clouds against home
in the eyes of someone’s animal
I tried to unthread numbers
but that’s what time
seemed to be
moving toward
face decimated
by war-sex
verbing all the objects
that knew I’d do anything
to get out of this microphone
saying your bed name to strangers
who only want a light
there’s an ugly hollow
between the waves
this decade
striking out
what goodwill founders
in the open mouths
of the dead we bought
I couldn’t be more not myself
trembling at logic’s severed silver edge
so here’s the hopeless part
my mouth is open
kept that way
the dead
gather there
in the pauses
or else sew flaws
into its tight red webbing
because we must say something wrong
if we want the hollow gone
whose intelligence is proffered daily
like a bright food
that only starves
in cluttered
throbbing pauses
we must trust
the air to carry
us past absence into flesh
our pores pausing open like moths
where dust is part of light
and our song is carried
on by the particulates
we busily sloughed
to fill
the room