Conversation slips into the emptiness between

sidewalk tiles and sofa cushions,

grows old

forgotten,

unseen.

Listen:

a shy wind picks up,

permeates the vacant folds of day

that crave whispers not uttered

by withered people who know

that losing sleep is finding time

so they collect the darkened hours

following themselves back to houses they once knew

where the trees spring taller than the papers at their feet

and the heat is bearable because it once was born

and the air doesn't smell like half-filled suitcases and foreign shoes

but of lemons

and midnight

and silence testing time,

waiting on park benches

that have seen too many faces speak

but none that stop

for a moment

to be.

Breathing is a business

the price of air is high

why waste it on words that

fall

linger

say nothing at all

and are gone.