Quiet

The other night when you were clinging to my dreams

You felt alive, but still, I knew you were dead.

The whole of you was the way I remember it:

Slicked-back hair and black mustache,

Coffee-soaked skin and a way of not saying

Anything that would make me think

Maybe you would never say anything at all.

But she says differently, you know

How you would bark and scream at her

And her own mother who wouldn’t say

Anything either because what can you say

When all the words bleed out and there’s nothing

Left to back them up?

And I think about that. How infuriating.

How impossible. To be a kid, set against

a restless 1970’s night, screaming obscenities

In your front yard because saying it inside

Would mean imminent death.

The bark lost its bite, supposedly,

But you’d still offer it, loud to my little

Girl ears, offset against your quiet,

Like being one way, only to become another.

And there I am in her very small body,

In the front yard of my mind, not screaming

Profanities at your face but telling

you how deeply loved you are

And that maybe your quiet

Was where you should have lived most.