A Deaf Refrain

How do you play a melody

deep inside the words

to sing each letter off the page

and free them like a bird

How do you write the lyrics

to a mute and silent song

that lives inside the spaces

where true music’s never gone

How do you play a rhapsody

of couplets in your mind

releasing subject-verbs to be

forever to unwind

How do you pen a chorus heard

with what the verse has shown

and give each note a deaf refrain

—within a single poem

(The New Room: May, 2022)