by now—after many
years spent
living tight-lipped, but also
cheek by jowl
with your glum, rent-
paying neighbors—
alone is not a word
you can spot-treat
with hard labor,
and it doesn't
only grow in those
desertified conditions.
Although
to dare speak it
out loud to another
is to cleave its delicate
aura in two,
you suppose
that, if you could
just write it down,
it might become
a tiny seed
which is built
to contain, in its
shiny black hull,
this vast, opaque, and
frozen ocean.
