shr_4.1

Jennifer Faylor
Morse Code
The first night I attempt sleep without her
in our bed, the world's noise becomes Morse Code.
Ants tap her name across the dark linoleum,
and boots clunk through ceiling tiles––
they stamp out the word goodbye.
After midnight, crickets gather
in the sweetgum tree outside.
For hours they sing the lyrics
of things I should have said to her.
The express bus brings the graveyard shift
home to their wives, and the engine sputters
the words she would have mumbled in her sleep.
I even hear apples drop in the cold rain
all the way upstate.
Their red noise spells out my love,
but I know the fruit will only roll and rot
in the distant corners of the field.
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