Silent Song

Silent Song

Nancy Bevilaqua

There is always something singing
something. The forward glance. Savage springs
grown strong again drawn in again inside.

I’ve tried to translate it but this is how it turns:
unread and I know more than anything that this
is real and that it has been real

all along. You drove me down the trails
toward the amber in the orchard tree
where everything was held in quiet

reverie. Wholeness. Simple song
a single note is more than what is necessary
when the throat is dry the cave is open

to an open sky and don’t look down:
you’ve come this far the mountains are
around you faint and floating

chrysalis of motive of unbeing.
Sentence of my youth: I’ve read too much
have said too much to ever speak again

but through the dullness of a Sunday
something’s growing in a corner of the garden
hidden strong ensconced and only

shaken by the winds
I have no wishes
have no tongue.

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Nancy Bevilaqua
Poet & Author

Nancy has been published in West Branch, Prelude, Tupelo Quarterly, Whiskey Island, Juked, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Tinderbox Poetry, and other journals. In 2012 she published a memoir called Holding Breath: A Memoir of AIDS' Wildfire Days, and she has also published several volumes of poetry.

Photography by Liana Mikah