I WOULD MAKE NOISES DEEP

I WOULD MAKE NOISES DEEP

In my throat that sounded

So unlike anything I knew

That I would scare myself.

I became ceremony in sound.

A whirl of phlegm, crackling

And sputtering up from the

Rooms I guard against time

And her dancing princesses.

A quaking, as if a bear suddenly

Came into the room on hind

Legs and performed the crushing

Of an arm as if it were a

Dance and she the music.

Now, as autumn pushes clouds

Ahead of itself with a yard

Full of leaves, I hear these

Same sounds again issue

From their scraping across

The drive and think them

A familiar music, something

Treasured, like a Nocturne by

Chopin remembered by the fingers

Long after the mind has forgotten

The specificity of the notes and rests.

It is a rustling of lace

In a room draped with silences.