No language.
             Just late morning light
glazed in the hairs on your
                        skin, set in the sweat

of my pillow. I don’t need
            you to brush your teeth—
in fact, I don’t need you
                        to get up at all; I have

practiced poise for this
            like I practice music.
There’s a string section
                        of dust motes passing

in front of the window
            as the cat walks across the sill.
Each pawprint a syllable
                        in a word I dare not say,

or a record of what happens
            here. Of what wasn’t heard.
No need for consonance;
                        I quarter-rest next to you all

            morning waiting for the coda,
bring the reed to my lips
            before our bodies' chorus.



____

Jacob Rivers is the author of the chapbook Eros the Length of a Sentence. He manages a global humanities network at The Hannah Arendt Center, Bard College, and lives in Hudson, NY.