What the Ear Said

[MoonyLuna]

Nothing to hear in that hollow. Not boats,
not the cadence of boats and their oars.
Not wood and water and the ferry
to island in a storm, not rain. Not
the repetition of rain and the often loved
sound of trees. Or the sea.
Or the open mouth receiving. Not the lean
of the grief-struck against an oxcart or the low
of the dog caught in that rain. Again
the sound of the heart in the throat, and the too soon
lapse of breath. Again the beat of the foot
against the floor—the speech of the bed-creak
or the priest. Not to hear a cloak or some ghost.
Not moon. Not door. Not the entered shoes of a beautiful
stranger and her door, her moon.



Copyright Oliver de la Paz

[MoonyLuna]

Featured Poet
Oliver de la Paz


Oliver de la Paz, an assistant professor of English at Western Washington University, is the author of Names above Houses, published by Southern Illinois University Press. His poems have appeared in The Literary Review, Quarterly West, Third Coast, and Asian Pacific American Review and in the anthology Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Literature. (Author photo by Meredith Josey)