I can’t tell you how happy I am to announce
how happy I am. No, really. I can’t tell you—
I have no mouth, only the skin of my chin
curving up into the twin caverns of a mundane
nose with an uninterrupted blankness beneath.
It is a form of erasure, I’d say, if I could say
anything. Your sense of smell must be quite keen,
said the man on the bus as I stared pointedly away.
It’s not for him to say what’s blessing, what’s curse.
But the truth is I can keep a secret like a stone
& I’ve not lost a friend to anything but a hearse.