In the intimacy of stripped-bare sounds

I cannot remember any voice

My hearing is failing my memory of sound or

there is a rift so acute and deep

that it escapes comprehension.

I step on the fragile November ice

no it’s nothing unsafe // only tread

inspired by water on the field path

and covered with an icy fractal

of morning frost.

And yet there is fear in that bursting sound

As if everything under my feet were receding

to a bottomless depth //on whose bed is

an empty space for speech.

Corona time is // a second expulsion

from Eden: the little Roma girl

wasn’t learning for nearly a year she didn’t have

computer tablet or telephone:

She forgot even letters // wasn’t able to

sign her name: she smiled into the camera

and said:

“I’ll learn that again”

it rains incessantly rains on her little feet

shod in over-large shoes

a little dog loyally next her // she turns

and goes off with adult steps

aged 9 one day she’ll be very beautiful