So, I spoke to fear

because I could not speak to you

about love or how

when you left me for stars I counted

all my wishes and misses and spoke

the way a baseball bat speaks

to fear of the swing,

the way a castaway speaks fear

to the ocean and distant planets

of other islands.

 

I spoke to fear

because I could not speak at all

to the planet, the whip

of time passing every day, crack

cut and salt-cobbed.

 

So, fear spoke back

a long, tedious scolding, impossible

to talk back to.

 

First published in Poetry Scotland 71, 2011.