Cities Hidden by Rain
Edgar Cage

Each word passing
its fear to the next
until the page is dry,

meaning without words,

all sound eliminated
from the map of sound.

The sand buddhas
revealing
nothing but sand
in a scarab’s
distant Sanskrit.

*

Surrounding
a cockroach’s temple,
I sleep in someone else’s rage,
sharpening a grass blade
to lure the dawn closer.

*

Shiver
the way each
unspoken
fern
        shivers,
leading you
to the fifth silence
where they buried
the statues
        of the twitching forest.