I'm the silence you never wanted
the sitting and the thinking, mouth shut
without a television or a podcast

your wrists like something improbable taped
to the ends of your arms, George Washington's
dentures collected animal and human teeth.

I'm staring out the window at the rain
come slant, 30-degree-angled,
Duraflame log in the fireplace

as a crow turns a dark arc through the wet
swimming the rain,
cutting the cedar in half yet it still stands.

I turn to see you no longer there.
This is the best answer I can give you:
I don't know, and maybe never will.