Their Names
From the book Talking Underwater
Like a rain I feel but cannot see,
the names of the dead, falling.
Silences I hear between
first names, middle, last
are slivers of empty air between
lines of rain. I want
to be in these tiny silences
that cannot hold their deaths
but join them to all silence –
rests in a piece of music,
the quiet beneath a rock,
the feather on a crow,
beak closed, wings
perfectly still.