Poem of the Month
Sound No 2

By Gillian Sze

Published on November 6, 2017

Cinema could be as intelligent and could transport as much message and image and idea as it can with sound.

— Werner Schroeter

There are things I want to show you, like the empty pause that encircles desire. Or how Klimt knew that a woman bends her neck that far for a kiss only if she really wants it. I want to show you how quiet it gets when you’re in the company of someone who no longer loves you. I want to remind you of that unseasonable memory when I bloomed the reddest flowers. Who knew an instant could be so endless and vacant. I want to point out the stony space that the dead take up, that an epitaph is always too short, and that death’s impetuous timing is measured by all the books that will never be read. But more than anything, I want to show you something smaller: how the smell of winter at night has the same crisp scent as the sound of the word biscuit, the touch of velum in your mouth.

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