For two days now I’ve whispered
just a decibel above silence
as the solitary road
rounds the valley and climbs
between dunes shrouded in sunset.
Any sound louder than memory
shatters this vast and simple happiness.
Outside a wide burn shivers itself to sleep—
once an ocean sticky with life,
now a porous bowl in which nothing stays,
everything seeps through.
Before long-distance buses and radio love songs
this desert had no stations,
its giant shadow connected
ocean to mountain with a song of its own.
I can’t tell if this white hum in the night
is you, or infinity yawning in every direction.
You fill the silence with static,
you’re FM debris drifting on my whispers,
an organic question
mark pressed through a mirage.
And as I too drift
toward noise and summer months
this muted balance will break,
shadow will give way to sun,
songs will sing true,
the same
as this time last year
before I picked up your frequency.
LOCATION: Somewhere in the Atacama desert, Chile
