(For Robert Dessaix)
Since the dead have stopped talking, I’ve
turned to the media. Though I only listen
now & then, it seduces every time –
original good and original sin came
wrapped in its intimate registers, filtered
through childhood’s ears: I am crying on
my mother’s lap, or holding my father’s
hand, and the rise & fall of their voices
binds me to them like blood. This foreign
language I’ve learned to speak is the
algebra of my mind, the grammar of
my heart – absorbed, taken for granted
like food, or the light of day. But then
there are the other sounds – the texture
of my mother tongue is the nearest I know
to breathing, a reflex older than thought.
I see lips moving on subtitled screens,
but let their sense drift over my head
as I wallow in the sound – they may be
plotting some dismal crime, but pitch
and cadence are beyond corruption,
and spirit me home every time: I am
three years old, I am saying my prayers,
and preparing for untroubled sleep.