Swallow

Lost in a sea
Of strangers who speak
In liquid tongues;
This amber infection spreads fast:

All alone at last. Alas,

That happiness is framed in a
Touch and a word, and photographs
Of kisses never fade.

I wonder if white mice
Desire the crutch of their cages.
Mine is not large enough to dissolve me; I
Float in lumps above the everyday.

The sun holds; by night men lose their reason.
Cower in quiet desperation
As the day squelches; whirlpools into the unplugged dusking sky.
And I only find solvency in an English response.

Words like flotsam.
Sentences like driftwood, lost
in the evening slurry as soon as they're said.

I swallow.