the art of being mute

i love the way he talks

the half sentences with verbs missing

his hands that fall half-heartedly

as if to supply them 

and then with a shrug abandon the effort

but I catch it every time

sort through the sentences and shrugs

and emerge with the sense of what he says

clasped tightly in my palm

in exchange i spill a thousand synonyms

a torrent of sounds to balance the silence

that you stretch between your syllables

its funny.....you know....speaks like bending

and even then he leans on me

like the wind pushing itself past his throat

is too much for him to bear

and so he will collapse the words into whispers

and then again into gaps and ellipses

waiting for me to twist these absences into sense

and shape them again into strength

to be his voice i sing

with all the words i've ever known

its no wonder i suppose

that his dreams sounded so much like mine

when it was my tongue

filling in his silences