There is a silence words can’t touch.
There is.
And there’s a name inside my name
Though one my mother never said out loud

She never said it, never once, although
She knew there was another name
That sleeps inside my name

Sleep now, old name,
For no one wants to know of you

My mother, she is dead these dozen years
And she is grown so small
She sleeps inside my name when it is said

I think she sleeps
Within that other name as well, more deeply, far
More quietly, turning only once or twice
Inside that paradise

Sleep now, old love,
It is too late to say a word to you