Hack
Silence

Hack

Tonight the cough in my windpipe feels like rust, like wiry cobwebs,
like steel crumbs, disturbing my whole evening as I write (this is how
the dead must think of their shoes) and prompting anxious questions from
my wife as she brings the sweet juice of ripened pears that makes me feel
my age, even after the door closes, even after I cross out the passive verbs.

Silence

One can mention the yellow poplars
in their low dingles and tearful dells,
the quiet resonance of wool,

or point to incense, the fibrils
of a spider's web, eyes unhooking
their grasping jelly tongs,

cite the dense clusters of mute stars,
the sadness at the bottom of the sea.

Askold Skalsky has appeared in numerous poetry publications--most recently in Cutthroat, Freshwater, and Marco Polo Quarterly--and also published abroad, mostly in Canada, England, and Ireland. Last year he received a second award from the Maryland State Arts Council for his poetry, and one of his poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.s