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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Two People

Things said,
and not said.
Tell me what I want to say
and I will give you a kiss,
an argument,
say thank you and please.
I am on the other side
of some unintelligible mirror.
It shows me what I want to see,
and then stays mute,
and I wonder if words
are too little for the heart’s hands.
If love refuses to be bandied about
like a rumor,
or described like a pickle.

I know things I’m not supposed to know,
but I can’t tell you or anyone else
how they come about,
taste, balance each other.
Words elude me,
and I never learned to spell.
Never found exactly
how a thing should be described.
Except push it away,
or put it in a box full of colors,
or simply conclude
there are two people inside me.
One, who is real
and cannot talk.
The other never shuts up,
and never knows if it’s going out
or coming in.

If I remain silent with you,
it is because real things to me
do not have words.
I reach into things,
and know them by their silence.
So it is with you.
If there are tears in my eyes,
it is me.
If I touch you,
it is me.
When I speak,
I slip away,
loving you as best I can,
shouting from my silence.

Published inIndex of all Poems