Who is she? 

She’s a modern woman

I’ve never heard her speak.

Now I’m in love with her voice

angelic, soft, soothing

(not weak).

You probably imagine her saccharin, 

all sweetness and light

– so far.

(I bet you can feel the ‘but’ coming)

She utters a bitter sound of the night

across a breakfast table

turning in a bed

walking a street

brushing her teeth

even sitting to do her business.

Her voice creeps behind the words

subverts the common meaning of social intercourse.

Her stories are not my stories

If you stumbled across her vignettes

you might also mutter ‘they’re gold dust, 

they conceive, germinate, grow stronger

in the soil of daily life’.

And they bear seed

– whenever I get close enough.