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.

Return to Vol. 41.1