There are many things not to say.
We face each other
and suddenly do not say them aloud
with a voice of dissatisfied silence.
A hole dug in dry sand.
Our tongue shovels
cannot uncover the words
fast enough to make a sound.
Sand slips,
words fall
heaped
in our mouths,
our throats fill with sand.
We are glad for quicksand’s down-sucking
silence swallowing everything we ought not say.
Some words are better buried.
Except we become heavy with buried words,
heavy with the sand that buries them.
2001