I am buzzing now.
I thought at first it was my cell phone;
then maybe the electric hum
of a nearby appliance.
But now I am resigned that I am the hum:
my thigh, for example, will vibrate briefly
and then maybe my arm. No predictability:
I hum when it wants.
I used to be able to talk to the dead.
Lots of people spend countless dollars
and much energy trying to contact the dead.
For a while, I couldn’t get them to shut up.
I finally became afraid and just stopped listening
to those beyond, even to Liz, whom I had loved
in that heartbreaking teenage way. And my brother,
who said funny things and woke me up
when a mutual friend also died
to tell me he was really ok and they were laughing now.
I was up on my apartment roof last night
looking at the harvest moon, which scared
the surrounding billowy clouds back
as it turned from orange to a precise
punched-out white, looking almost like an escape hatch
through which, if any signal might pass, could
bulldoze through earth, bone, even life,
if only it would touch enough pain in a receiver.
