I like the way he listens to me. How he has learned, over decades studied, how not to say. His rash impulses of speech caught, held in a net of sturdy thread he sewed into an inner eye, a catch basin at the bridge of his nose.

When my husband's ears wake my voice someone loves me out of my silence 

I find a way to tell

a trickling dream, a little fish, a wish swimming into consciousness into life streaming

out of my life rushing toward what my father would call my wonderful 

One decades ago day in my father's garden, he listened. Everything I said without saying he knew

what I was fishing for, how it hooked me

I said I wanted them to meet

All photos and words copyright Kelly DuMar 2016