Blue 52
When a whale stops singing, he’s
given up asking for anything.
A console piano, crushed. No sacrament
here, the tabernacle looted
ages ago. Moss shrouds the silent,
sits green like a cathedral
humming with the organ of the unsaid.
There’s more to listening than wavelength.
There is the question, inversely,
of something being said. Truth dies
not with the bones, which live forever, or
with the tongue, which decays later, but
with the heart that stops insisting. A spill
at the altar from when the bottle broke.
Drunks’ wine. Blood-pact. Promise. What
is language, except a cup with which
to insist on one’s name? Imagine: years
rattling insufficient coins. The music
of metal on metal. I’m still here, I’m still here, I’m still here.
KATE PYONTEK writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Their poetry has been published or is forthcoming in POETRY, Four Way Review, the lickety~split, Ecotone, and elsewhere. Kate is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Maine.