Vox

Sitting with my steaming cup,
a creature yet capable of choice,
I take my bitten pencil up
to trace the music of your voice,

how it touches me, makes
its silky way through tympanum
to malleus, incus, stapes, shakes
cochlea and nervous system,

finds the skin, where it draws
each tiny hair erect,
chills me in the narrow pause
dividing bliss from intellect.

Give me bliss. Only speak:
let love parse its own
demotic. Mandarin or Greek
will shiver English in my bones.