Listen to the vacancy in this poem:
spaces echoing absence, vague images,
subtle cipher, the ache of appetite,
silhouettes of unstressed syllables,
a barely discernible persona–
How expectant lyrics fade;
where each trace of allusion
and delay at enjambment
collude to say you are gone.
The tug of war between lines
leaves behind misplaced caesuras,
aborted silence of parenthetical
moments, hearts apostrophized in
distance, dissonance, and disconnect.
Hear this poem’s murmured metaphor,
its breath in hesitant, panted intervals,
its divisive stanzas, gorged on implication,
asserting promises whispered in ellipsis . . .