like cracks
in a load-bearing wall,
those little awkward pauses
aren't like that
at all.
Woven though they are
through the opaque
morass
of all our
most tedious,
prefab conversations,
they seem, at best,
like empty gaps—
but the truth is
our hesitations
are much sturdier
and more integral than that;
picture the rebar
which runs right
through the concrete
reinforcing the walls
of the rooms
we were born in—
or the mortar
holding right
to the mausoleum's bricks
which houses
the remains of our
very last communication—
every wearisome
second of it,
brick after brick,
whether we chose to build it
alone
or together.
