I keep pushing silence
to step up
and speak in my face

but it stays quiet,
dressed in the wind
through the aspens
and the ventilation
through the house

while the rail whines
ahead
of the freight train
pulling up around the bend

Nothing is said

I force the world
to fly its colors

but it's just my imagination

at the center
of something that isn't

just as silence dresses
in all these sounds,
rain beating down on the roof;
I, in my years, listening