Easy to lose sight of how much truth
silence can hold. We weigh out costs,
tally memories, rehearse the important

conversations. What happens when
language sails off in a boat half-sunk?
Will we succumb to muteness, become

out-of-practice statues, speechless, dis-
languaged. Our accounts scare us.
We no longer fit inside our own story;

we fragment like undressed stones—
small, tucked into a wall, and walked by
and leaned on. Unseen. We convey

our tales. Our hands, shoulders, entire
faces animated by what is not said