All Evening, Each Time I Started To Say It

All evening, each time I started to say it,

something would interrupt.

It was not a thought so very large--

it could in fact have slipped through any window

cracked open a bit for air.

Yet each time I started to say it, at that table,

someone else would speak, the moment would pass.

After the fifth time this happened, I began to be amused.

Runt-of-the-litter-thought, I thought, unable to get to the tit.

Then suddenly wanted to lift it up,

to feed it an eyedropper's measure of mare's milk,

some warmed sugar water, a little colostrum of badger.

It suddenly seemed to me the kind of thought,

not large, on which a life might turn.

There are many such: unheard, unspoken.

Their blind eyes open and close,

the almost audible valves of their hearts.

But all evening, each time I started to say it,

something would interrupt, the moment would pass.

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