the dark, and otis redding--

when i think of a passionate
and long abiding
love

i think of my love for the dark

how it hides and also does not hide
because it obscures the speaker
but gives its words
their own lives

and brings silence with it

the sort of silence that serves as a vast backdrop for
the soft screeching of crickets and maybe the quiet
crash of the cold
but calm
sea

numbing when i dragged my feet through it last night
i was patient because i knew that it was right:
all the stars would arrive

in the darkness everything looks like the sky, like
the record player i hear crackling in my mind

the way it spins itself into a revolving universe of black wax

somehow manages to conjure
otis redding

and i am his fool once more