Bruce McCrae
The Noble Gases
The voice that is dry leaves and plush essences.
A voice from the dreamworld warning it can’t be done.
Time sulking under the willows.
I still hear the wind around the door of your name,
pushing and pulling the snowfelt evening,
delivering its parcels, pining for Phoebe Reggio,
bemoaning the dullard in me.
I can still hear your voice and the doves’ language,
speaking the river’s lingo and cant,
insisting insisting . . .
The tongue of rare elements and noble gases,
small-talk gnawing on its sweetened straw.
The voice lost among fields of cane,
a few grains remaining
in Mr. Mnemonics’ storehouse of plenty.
Where did you go when you went there?
Voice like a swallow’s swoop and ship’s lantern.
A voice pitched like a memory jarred.
Like a storm coming
and the heart’s sailor longing for safe harbour.