I learned to think with my eyes
speak with my hands
in the shimmery violet and reddish black of the evening light
the sound of Aramaic wending along the Eustachian tube
of my middle ear filled with voices of inanimate friends—
table, lamp, pictures—all company keepers
and what it means to forge a bolt on my past
ensuring word does not get out to the wrong people.
To lose a world
and find it again
along a wet slate sidewalk
where I sit on one side of a glass partition
listening to a distant voice
telling me what it is I must do.