Soon enough you will come to see the vanity
of feeling compelled to explain yourself
or take something back you can’t take back.
You will learn to throw your voice into the silence.
To let it speak for you in the trees and rivers.
You will come to recognize it as darkness’s sister,
how together they form the evening and sweep
the earth like the hem of a widow’s dress.
You will come to find yourself in a folding chair
at the edge of the world staring at candles
on the long horizon, glimmering, glimmering.
With a gimlet in one hand and a rifle in the other,
you will watch yourself disappear in the gaze
of a squirrel who is really an angel assigned
by his Lord to test your soul in the gloaming
with the swish of his tail and chatter, chatter.
Shoot me again. Shoot me again.
And you will have to see if you can keep
the barrel down as the darkness falls
at the side of silence, singing, singing.