Be silent. Hush. Take up the sound of ooze
like oil from olives that the presses bruise.
Or be the sound of fresh baked loaves, the sound
of seeds beneath the stony, sun-packed ground.
I’ll be the noise of wheat beneath the stone,
or, caught jammed in the leopard’s throat, a bone
rattling jagged, heard as just a wheeze
the beast exhales into the copper breeze.
Or hush and let the leopard’s windpipe be
a tunnel I stumble through as best I can
in darkness which obscures but can’t consume,
from which I’ll come into the sun to see
the full-sized shadow of a full-grown man
thrown on the grass beside the empty tomb.
—Ben Myers
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