Gap

The eyes will always be older

than anything we say.

Words begin in clarity,

cuneiform in wet clay,

begin in an untolled

                      morning air of the mind.

But then the pulmonary interface –

tone sharpens without warning

vitrifies, betrays,

a sentence heaves into view,

deflected by leaden vapours to

some unknown destination,

and words hang heavy between us,

exhausted as tea-bags,

more sodden than cliché.

Until we find ourselves in a simpler world,

trust something older,

more intimate, inflected,

trust the cursive silence

of the eyes.