Mute

Who do you think you are

not answering the world?

Onward tiptoeing soldier


mouth poked full of cake?

Maybe when you’ve always


had your own room the fire

escape collapses? So what’s

to see from your window?

Future disasters or just asters


in the brook? House number

or incest? Spur of murder?

Unadjusted auras? Think you


know something — do

you? Answer me damn it.

A. Loudermilk is a poet and educator living in Baltimore. His collection, Strange Valentine, won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2005. His recent work can be found in Pool, Salamander, Margie, Linebreak, Smartish Pace, and Tin House, among other journals.