The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2008

What in Men Is Silent

That he is so often afraid.

That he fears women, always.

That every man is his enemy.

That he never stops being a boy.

That he fears nakedness more than death.

That there are words too gentle for his mouth

and scenes too tender for his eyes.

That each disclosure of the self is

the self hiding in its veils.

That violence is his paramour.

That he feels more alone than the rocks.

That he’s learned those words, those scenes

of manger and funeral parlor

so well with his forgetting

the world is the soul’s desert.

That he’s already dead, and suspects.

That he’s been told about love and calls it sex.

That sex terrifies him.

That somewhere there is a place

and somewhere a woman

to make him whole.

That God is the joke he takes seriously.

That for his führer, his priest, his master,

his mullah, his sergeant… he is slave and soldier.

That he’s heard the rumor of love,

and his longing shatters him.

J. David Cummings