I live an agitated silence
like a cat that’s spotted a dog.

It comes now and then uninvited
and cannot be turned away.

It transforms my rooms to great chambers
where talk is coffined in corners.

I wear my dis-ease like mourning.
Like a sentence I do my time.

*

My likeness approaches with robes.
I would shout or run

but I turn instead heart whole
and don the proffered stole.

We are not a handsome couple
though the years have softened us

like brothers, born of the same mother
betrothed to different Gods.

*

He tells his story breathless
long and winding, dry

probes my eyes for secrets
I would not care to share.

My spirit gleams at the window
white as winter light.

I stand in agitated silence
a cat caught in the gaze of a dog.

 

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ZAV LEVINSON is poetry co-editor of Jonah magazine (https://jonahmagazine.com/). His poems have appeared in Poetry Quebec, SWEPTand Umbrella Factory. His chapbook, Trelliswork, from Sky of Ink Press, was published in October 2017. He is currently at work on a second chapbook.