What you know is what you want to hear.
What you can’t hear: something stalking in the forest
with bared teeth, radiation, healing, people
locked away for no good,
light changing, color.

What you watch is what you want to see.
What you can’t see: around the bend,
a bullet after it has left the chamber. God.
A child behind closed doors.
Black and blue under a cloak.

What you feel is what you want to touch.
What you can’t touch: death, nothing,
someone’s hate. What a vulture feels
eating the entrails of a doe. That color
of red.

What you think is what you want to speak.
What you can’t speak: the truth
all the time about what matters,
the name of anything you cannot
hear or see or touch. The reason

gray darkens light and lightens dark.