Michael Mark

Soon we’d lose
her language –

a crooner breaking                          
into jazz – grunts,

coos, teeth clicks.
Her hands

perfectly synced
with her meaning –

which I got
back then. Then

longer waits
for sense

to return.
Silence took                

quiet’s place.
Muted gusts –

laughter?  
– For what?

I couldn’t tell. Mom,
I’d say. Son,  

love, I’d say,
their meaning taken

though I kept
saying them.

Michael Mark

’s poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Grist, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Radar, The Southern Review, The Sun, Waxwing, American Life in Poetry. He’s the author of two books of stories, Toba (Atheneum) and At the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum). michaeljmark.com