Songs hold spaces
just like they hold notes.
A breath, a beat, a vital emptiness
between ascending
and descending steps,
and then nothing, and then
swell, and then
rest, and then
revelation—it is
the disappearance
and the quiet between, it is
the unheard,
which gives each note
a shape.

The so-called negative space
in paintings, where the canvas
has been neglected, left
hollow, passed over—those
undeveloped lots and unclaimed
portions, where the brush
never traveled,
the solitary plains which are
the dominion of lack
and bareness, absence
and want, these, I think,
are where the oxygen lives, where
the heart is given to wander
a moment.

The gaps between my
fingers, the vital pockets
of nothing in my lungs, the burning
in my body between meals, the droughts
between kisses—those pauses
between words, between
words, between words. And then
nothing, and then
feasts, and then
loss, and then
amen.

It is the quiet, I think,
which gives me
shape.