Slip Into the Still Silence by Connie Johnson

And what does it entail? Hired cleaning ladies

With a key to your house sift through secrets. They eavesdrop

On your rituals, all that melanated magic served over a hot

Plate of conversation. “Get to the essence,” they tell you.

You prefer silence, a poured vessel of common knowledge

It’s nightfall already &: “You ain’t never told the story straight,”

They complain. All your dogs hungry, rumbling through what

Feels like stripped bones and freshly-baked revelations. Come partake

As we sift through an armful of stars and blue-yielded avenues. 

It’s so quiet on these streets and you look so good

Head to toe, your cocked hat and nimble limbs.  This feels like

The wine talking and no telling where that could lead

I know you.

I feel like I know you.

Never question a soul tie, the thinnest of veils separating us

And if you knew how beautiful you are: (If you knew

If you knew…

You would never beg in silence again.

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, California-based poet whose work has appeared  or will be forthcoming in Iconoclast, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, Voicemail Poems, Misfit Magazine, Exit 13 and Mudfish.