After a while, a voice starts Up, as if ringing from a phone, Hesitant swimming up from The disturbed waters of silent Years pooled between now And then - present and past.

A ripple is set off somehow – None threw a stone in, No rain is falling down Nor is the air traveling - Beginning at the margins, That soft skin of earlobes, The well in one’s neck, Fingertips, corners of lips.

And so afterwards a man sits Up in bed all night, Clutching the center, His wildly oscillating heart.