Old women repeat themselves

I repeat things
like an old woman

muttering to myself the phrases
of worn hours, shuffling shoes
in the dry stone

On Tuesdays
I take a train into the city

where I might not be heard
above drawn cacophany

sighing streets over
& over again

Old women sit next to me
on the train--women
who have never been mothers

She repeats me.
She repeats her phrases

to the street sighing
her perfection / an imitable mirror
brown mirrors that would be my own ghosts

They tell stories to one another
Of course

They don't know the way the streets
fill themselves / fill me
On Tuesdays I take a train into the city--

It doesn't matter why

so that small ceramic birds
might not light sharply / briefly

on my hands
I wear gray gloves
to touch smooth surfaces---

brown mirrors
They would rub away spots of discontent

infinitesimal impertinence
to light so sharply on my hands
my hands like brown mirrors

my hands are sighing streets
my hands repeat one another

phrase to phrase / Old women
sitting next to me
on the train

she repeats me / She has never been a mother
She hangs brown mirrors on her skin

warming them to her almond touch
repeating her phrases in sweet
assiduous songs

to the birds
and the brown mirrors

I am not listening / to her sighing
or her sedulous birds //

Something old, something new...

The Silent Poet in the Room

Maybe I
am the silent poet
in the room
though no poets
should be silent. They might not

know how to look at me
or what can be done
with a degree
in poetry.
So I am sitting down

and watching them move
about the room,
quite content
to watch their mouths,
the silent poet in the room.

They don’t know
that I might see the room
as blank pages,
prepositions
laid out with the forks on the table.

Woman lifts a verb
to her lips, tasting subjunctive
—would that she
could read
the adverbs perfectly lining the window.

It’s all so very nice
but where
did you put the questions
that might spark some interest?
Woman: Did you ever hear
of a man painting wings
on the sky?

Older Woman: Where
did you husband go
after he died?

Mother: Was it quiet
inside just before
you broke your heart?

Questions loaded
with complex clauses,
and I,
the silent poet in the room,
am churning them
for roots and verbs
to hang like charms
on my skin.

But then—
maybe it’s enough
for them
to let the dusk roll
into mere colors
and not observe the poet
in the room.