and distracted by soft
music, by
sunlight and clouds and
rumors of god,
these small noises of
wars fought
in distant lands, of
falling houses and
sleeping children, hands
cold on the
steering wheel or on the
trigger of
the gun, ideas of escape,
motion, gentle
hills rolling down to
deep blue oceans,
and i am here to tell you
these things
that may or may not be,
and i am here
to explain that nothing
can be explained,
and i am sorry for your
father’s cancer
and i am sorry for your
grandfather’s
suicide, but quietly, the
sound of my
voice too much in this
wide open
field, the pain of memory
everywhere,
and when your lover tells
you she’s
drowning what she means
is that
you’re the sea and when
your
children run away what
they want
you to believe in is the
smothering
weight of failure
what they want to punish
you for
is never quite spoken out
loud
