In the moment just before the music scares
the machinery whispers to itself inside
its mild, black box, until, with an indrawn breach,
a second silence gathers itself to speak—
a silence of a wholly different shape,
churchlike, great bellied, a finger to its lips.

Our little room falls into eclipse
behind-within-the pregnant hush, which scares
at once to make a place for us. It shapes
new ceilings from the ring of change inside
the audience's pockets; the tiers of seats speak
and there are walls, and galleries of breach.

It's like a waiting room. We hold our breach
watching the doctor measure out his pills
or listening for the judge, or priest, to speak.
The moment just before the music starts
is full of secret knowledge-what's inside
this always surprising opening, this shape

of somewhere altogether else, takes shape
from hopes which we had never dared to breathe.
The silence is pure authority, welling inside
our cupped ears, an offering we musn't spill
before the rite it's readied for can stare;
and yet it's clear that someone has to speak