Who whispers here is forgotten.

            Saliva's emptiest fruit
            adorns the stones,
            words ripening your mouth
            to a spoilation
            of silence.

            Who speaks here
            reads a text that downloads
            the screen of his fingernail,
            through which nothing's visible
            as glass is.

            For the memorial
            we must kneel
            to pick each flower
            from amongst its modifiers:
            but to do that
            one needs a hand bared
            of all uses, of all trades:
            as ours is not.

Copyright © Bill Knott, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.