Paper

On this side of outside

I can't hear the weather at all.

Wind mouthing nothing,

leaves unraveling out of sight—

like watching a movie

with the sound turned down.

My mind ticking loud.

The page a room,

night washed blue.

I'm pressing the palms of words

against what my next door neighbor

waves every morning,

what even my grandmother could read,

what my daughter watches

on educational t.v.

In my fist a grocery list of my life,

the same dull staples,

palimpsest of memory.

Blankness falls over me.

It falls from nowhere onto skin, hair.

It melts on my tongue

and when I open my eyes

I'm lying in a field of silence

watching how sleep

seems to rise off my body.

On the other side of white,

an alphabet of lightning,

dialect of lips on skin,

fingertips telegraphing images,

sound beginning to shed its colors.