Practice

Go on, then. Close your eyes.
Assume the posture.

Address the vacancy
as if it held a name.

You know the voice that answers.
It is yours,
with the edges softened,
made patient,
made wise.

You ask.
You wait just long enough
to feel it count.

Then grant yourself
a measured kindness,
a sentence that sounds
like it came from elsewhere.

Nothing has altered.
The chair remains a chair.
The hour goes on spending you.

But there is a faint relief
in having performed it,
as if some ledger
has been quietly adjusted.

Outside, the world proceeds
without your appeal.

Inside, you rehearse approval
in a language no one hears,
no one answers,

and call it answer.