THE GRATE

Over time, those sharing the steam grate

Where St. Jerome sleeps on cold nights

Have become minor variants. Their Latin

Has an Illyrian lilt. Wrens and cats

Keep track of them. They’re working,

When sober, on translating

Silent certainties into quiet doubts.

FOR ONE OR FEWER GUITARS

The slow pavanna provides
Music enough to filigree the silence;
The more austere angels begin to dance
Long ago they stopped wondering
About the terms on which they exist
Or if they exist at all. Now if ever
They will answer if you will ask.

SO

Quiet sits on the porch;

Silence fixes the roof.

Quiet has a map;

Silence keeps a diary.

Quiet pours the wine;

Silence drinks it.

SOME GIRLS I USED TO KNOW

Silence carries a flute she never plays
She wears dark clothes and smokes cigarettes
Which materialize in her hand already lit.
Quiet, who is her much younger sister,
Has never quite mastered the trick;
She turns her wrist just so, but finds
An allen wrench there, or a Number 4 pencil.

AN AESRED POEM

The old muse remembers a poem
That, beginning in silence,
Sank into a cold stillness
That grew fainter as it retraced
A street into a quiet heart.
She cannot recall the ending
But thinks a marvelous clown
Entered midway and danced
Magically, in green slippers
Which made no sound.