Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?

Evicted from sleep's mute palace, I wait in silence for the bridal croon; your legs rubbing insistent rhythm against my thighs, your breath moaning a canticle in my hair. But the solemn moments, unuttering, pass in unaccompanied procession. You, whose chanteys hummed my life alive, have withdrawn your music and lean inaudibly on the quiet slope of memory. O Shaker, why don't you sing? In the night noisy with street cries and the triumph of amorous insects, I focus beyond those cacophonies for the anthem of your hands and swelling chest, for the perfect harmonies which are your lips. Yet darkness brings no syncopated promise. I rest somewhere between the unsung notes of night. Shaker, why don't you sing?