Without the noise of home I learn
to hear my body’s own sound.
It is like sleeping in a narrow boat,
waters slapping at the wooden sides
wanting to carve a space already
hollowed out. The failure of
the body’s quiet is the triumph of the ear—
having been pressed to the earth
in my search for currents of missing
footsteps. These feet cannot tread
water. But my ear cannot separate
its own pulse from the sound of marches
My slippery vessel, headlong into the night—
ashore with my sleep, expecting to be gathered.