As though...

as though the night
were a shrill winged choir of crickets,
or a luminous flight of embers,
or the slow alchemy of phosphorus
glimpsed beyond the veil of my window
on this dark of the new moon

as though it were stars singing
in the silence
as though silence itself
were roaring—
as though
it were a howling crater of glass
or a chalice shattering in the distance
as though all distances
   were humming
  as though all humming
    were the whole of things—
as though
what remained was love
and love an endless night:
humming
  silent
    humming—

There, where all sound
  is devastating,
where even my own voice
needs to be kept
 at a distance—
for the fear,
for the sharp ache,
for the longing
 dressed as fear—

and so I stay,
within the hum,
within the dark
that sings me.

I listen
into the space
between each
 particle
  of sound.

—Lorena Wolfman (2019, 2025)