Back in October, I couldn’t keep
a conversation alive, so out of practice
after months alone. Now, sitting
at a table of vaccinated friends, I tire
quickly, my voice a little horse
galloping into bright fields of alfalfa,
slowing, dropping into the soft
shade of hardwoods to rest.

Only child in a quiet house, I was best
friends with silence, or rather, happy
in the company of birdsong, the harsh
mystery of a stray cat’s yowl, the hooved
story pressed in code at corn field’s edge.
Let me listen more than talk, even now,
and I will bring you the world in a poem.