​46. The Hardest Sound

I carry your heart

(I carry it in my heart)

Is something once written

Maybe on a bitten-edge of napkin

Or the water-marked belly

Of a yellowed piece of paper

Or maybe the dry-lined hands

Of a man who didn’t know where

That heart resided once death

Misplaced it.

I think maybe the hardest sound

Is no sound when the ones we love

Are stored in memory,

Lessons learned that line our spine,

The way their hair,

Blew and tickled their cheeks in the wind,

Oh how that glimpse plays

Hard against our retinas.

But knowing how my heart,

Pumping and alive

Could have breathed the breath

Of life, the truth in love

Told to the one who supposedly

Meant the most.

The absence of that.

Maybe that’s the worst sound of all.