the sound glass makes 

the sound glass makes

what is this lonely sound?
the shoe dropping,
the old woman at the knockless door--
some cat no one wanted, hungry for a leg
to rub against.

i never claimed to know anything.
except: the sound glass makes,
just before it shatters.

saddled with this useless bit
of prescience, people think i
see through them-- what will become of
them, how they might find their
way home. it's like a man i loved
for a moment in high school--
eight years my senior, with deep liquid eyes.
"people think i'm sensitive. i can't help
it. they're just my eyes", he told me,
the day before sleeping with my
best friend.

we aren't at all what we make ourselves out
to be. the junkie hides a writer,
more practical than lyrical,
and the writer hides an accountant.
nothing adds up.

me, i'm counting songs stored up
like beads in a widow's rosary.
some prayers aren't meant for answers,
and some answers we refuse
to understand.