How long is the wind?
It strings the blue bead
of the earth in place
from end to end.

Say it is one piece
in a necklace, then
what jeweler? What neck?
Star-eater, you said

nothing when I asked;
you couldn’t hear me
with my mouth pressed
to the galaxy’s

black ear. Or did you
turn to read my lips,
watching the dimple
of each syllable

form and disappear?
The wind spools each word
back onto its string,
opening another

silence on the lip
of the horizon
between mind and thing.

 

 

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Malachi Black is the author of Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon). He teaches at the University of San Diego.