tin cicada

I imagine you whispering

into my nearly deaf left ear

something personal

meaningful

sweet

and your voice floating
warm
like cedar-sifted breeze

into the lair of the tin cicada

that never sleeps
where your whisper rustles
like a candy wrapper in church

leaving me no choice

but to turn

for the millionth time

and spoil the moment

with an earnestly interested

“what, hon?”

and you, like me,

being absolutely unable

to say that certain tender thing

in just that tender way

ever again.

And I know I put it there

dug the hole myself

with the quivering headers

of some thundering engine

planted the seed

of this constant swirling sizzle

there in my inner ear
with screaming guitars
in rainbow concert halls

fertilized and watered it

earning a paycheck
cleaning bearings
with an air hose

cultivated it

with a quick shotgun
in the pheasant field

and finally harvested

the inevitable result
with a deer rifle
in the autumn woods.

And now, whether

lying here in the dark

with you beside me

or sitting alone

waiting for a winter dawn,

I can hear this tin cicada

and pretend it's a summer evening

and we’re on the porch

and you’re whispering

warm 
like the cedar-sifted breeze.