Upon Which You Forget to Breathe

after Norman Dubie and John Cage

Somewhere there’s a drunken street choir 
or the closing of a piano’s lid, an expectant 
audience steeps deeply. Eventually,
a quaker must answer their phone. 

Morning!  A walk along the mulch 
trail. Every day this way — a 
theme, no variation.  Swings a branch 
outside to make music of solitude — you 
should have heard it. Like a cathedral 
dome, the sound choked the air, 
rubbing up against infinity. At last, 

Sunday service, a hall of friends. The quaker 
rose in motion, a celestial microphone held
to their silence, and the room heard exactly.