My joints are throbbing from holding my body together. It’s

the only way, some nights, I know I’m alive. I am profoundly

happy. Keats is here in his letters, and Saint John of the Cross,

and a paper about stars that are so dense that normal atoms

cannot survive in them. It’s one of those summer nights,

an onshore flow bringing the savor of plankton into

the skylight of my little room—nothing I would call a breeze,

just a whiff of the sea from far off, and the private song

of the ceiling fan, and a shy hum from somewhere deep

in the sleeping house, and notebooks and the cat. Just think,

my heart was starving once. Maybe that was this afternoon.

Now maybe a little skiff floats somewhere on the glassy harbor,

Maybe its anchor is ledged deep in the bottom sand. Maybe

Gulls sleep huddled in its shadows. Maybe somewhere,

In some narrow street, two people kiss and surprise themselves,

Or maybe Keats is falling in love again, or maybe St. John

Of the Cross is just sitting down to his bread and his wine when

A hidden bird begins singing in the dark hedge. I didn’t make

the world. I would never have known enough about the stars and

the atoms. I would never have gone beyond my famished heart.

If I listen very hard, I can hear the silence under absolutely everything.

Or maybe it’s a prayer. Or maybe tonight it’s only a word. Maybe it’s yes.