Your Voice Poem by John Beaton

Some pages have no signatures
yet I don't doubt which writing's yours—
it bears a voiceprint so, with ease,
I know you finger-stroked the keys
or made the helpless ballpoint jink
along your curves and drool its ink.
But living voice has pace and tone,
and tongue—I feel an urge to phone
you at your work, to hear that purr
across your vocal chords, that burr
of huskiness as lips sough vowels
from registers where ardour growls,
to hear your tongue-tip palate-dance
and castanet your consonants
as, from boleros in your mind,
your thoughts, in whirls of words, unwind.

Your voice is no mere human flute;
its concert organ finds the root
position in your innate score
and plays your music, lets it soar
through the cathedral of your chest
where, underneath your lifting breast,
your heartbeat's muted tremolo
vibrates through breathing's cello bow,
the whole ensemble playing Bach
and Bruckner, Brahms, and Bacharach
to universes, yet à deux.
You speak and blind men fall for you.