The Mist

His voice was like a memory of sound;
the electric spark that turns a word

into fire or water to boil. When he
paused to take in a breath, I measured

the present from past, the past from future,
an audio-door whose hinges were stressed

and loosened. And then, it was gone like
the foghorn cry carried away by the sea

into a silent world, a wall of mist.