The sound of a telephone ringing
in an empty room
is cousin to a black hole,
to the petite gyre of a pencil point,
tires screeching without collision
A vagrant rummaging in dumpsters
searches in deserted streets and alleys;
a deluded soul seeker in biblical beard
hopes a vaguely familiar apparition
will rise from the spirit of a manhole
Emptiness hovers just above insidious interludes
where conversations stop for want of a word,
receding too rapidly to be snared,
elusive as night spirits coming to menace
spaces between closed doors, between walls
A psychic pictures absence in a seance;
a kiss hungers for another kiss;
a woman sunken in her lover’s arms
sobs without knowing why,
defenseless against what overwhelms her