That first fall day with the ceiling fans stilled
is a good place to stand in, to occupy the self
with the same kind of silence the self is usually
occupied with avoiding. It becomes a hunger,
the search for sound. Sometimes in the empty
of a room even air disappears. Then you’re in
deep, a space aware of the space around
and inside. There is always a through to travel.
The question of loneliness is not a question.
It’s a bird, bright-caged, bright-voiced, night
lit. And this is the sound that time makes: a song
that lasts half of the time it takes for wings
to flutter off into gone. Is there anything else
besides space, besides ever, beside the bright
cage that calls itself life? The question of
loneliness is not a metaphor. It is a body
in early fall, standing in the space it calls home.