Weightless

I’m folding a blanket

Tossed on the floor

When I hear you.

I catch my breath, because

Fear is an old habit

Instinct, instantly alert

But this is something else.

Simple

Weightless

Words

Floating through the walls,

Sliding down the stairs

Lapping into the living room

Where I stand on tiptoe

Clutching the shifting sand

Beneath me.

Where I strain

To register and record

Every off key, distant sound.

Do you hear that?

I say to the skeptical air that surrounds me.

How do I describe this feeling?

Imagine finding a beloved photograph

Folded and creased in the back corner

of a cluttered drawer,

While you’re reaching for your socks.

Imagine tracing the likeness

The lightness

You left for lost

And feeding the fact of it

to your hungry heart.

I whisper it to my reflection in the TV.

I weep it from the deepest, darkness past

And the quiet echoes reverberate

Like waves off the walls

Listen, listen…

She is singing in the shower.

She is singing.