"Polyglot Boarding House"
Guh
Surrounded by the sounds
Of other people's love
At bars, in trains
And here, in other rooms
Drifting down halls
The knock, knock,
Knocking of knuckles on doors,
Of heads on headboards,
Of yeses and nos,
In a babel dance accompanied
By a symphony of creaking springs
My ears pressed against drywalls
And floorboards, and finally
Buried in pillows, hiding
From the sounds of long days' end,
Temperate weather, fresh laundry,
Open windows, restraint
Each of these six sides
And the humanities that bleed through them,
Never not, never so,
Unmoving, they have started to close in
The sounds are proof:
It is too crowded to be alone
And yet again, one person
Alone is too crowded
There is more space for one
Now, but there was more
For two
Oh
Respite, sweet they go
In foreign languages animatedly debating
In joy, as alien now as anything
Down the stairs and out into the morning
No dream need left unspoken
Because in company all is possible
But a hush is not silence
And silence, not emptiness
I am mislaid