When we speak through a medium

She writes about the constant
tintinnabulation in her ear,

the screen of blue-grey static
background to every other noise.

Silence, therefore, becomes
a field of buzzing premonitions:

electric fence, jumpy periphery
coiling around surfaces that poorly

reflect the moon or its shadows,
unsorted vegetation— what mouths

said and what the mind picked out
or mistook for something else. Now

when we talk on the phone, I wonder
what vapors away, divides; conveys.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.