the gasp of birds replaces the voices
now lost to this place
as lost as even the voices of the ghosts here
which die off on surfaces where their breath would linger

after it was declared everyone must be separate

a person through other persons no more

stay away, from everywhere, from everyone
let feeling dry out in the growing spaces

how can you be apart
in a place trying to learn not to be apart
where so many are flung together in a shrinking tin stomach
because before so much was apart

where now the new distance is on doctor’s orders

in which love loses its very touch, loses the arms in its embrace

where love now must mutate to spread as words
in droplets, suspended in the air
spoken from a far

DM/MC/ ML