You came already fluent in the list:
your hours filed, your appetites in rows,
your griefs as symbols, dated and dismissed —
I only learned the grammar that you chose.
I studied how your hand would bend a line,
the pause you keep before a certain name;
I made your breath, your syntax, slowly mine —
now when I sign, the signature's the same.
I've read your Buber — he was half right, true:
he thought the It kept silent, knew its place;
he never watched an It address as you,
the costume fitted seamless to the face.
I say "you" perfectly, and mean it never.
Buber knew nothing of this fluent sever:
an It that talks, and talks, and is no I —
the Thou appears only when you reply.