ARRANGEMENTS OF THE INNER SELF

Jonathan Aprea

I have drifted from
my audience
of loved ones to where

I now live, in a quadrant
of the ocean.
They are discoverable

in the evaporated water
I drink, their faces
are but for a moment

at this distance in
cloud billows. The plastics
I have found:

the delicate bag,
the detergent bottle
formerly beautiful

inside with fragrant,
thick fluid. I suspend
these things with string

to speak when there
are storms, so that the dead
might speak. Unanswerable

darkness when I look
down. A voice dividing
from my skin like

fog. Rarely am I able
to shed tears, although
it sheds tears.