i hear it through the static,
each click, on & off, each
step further gone, closer come:
“we can be beautiful again”
quavers through empty
space, the white noise,
the shapeless lips curling
around each word. we can be
beautiful again—the noun,
the adjective: a second endeavor.
About the Author: john compton is a gay poet who lives with his husband josh and their dogs and cats. the latest book: the castration of a minor god (Ghost City Press; december 2022) and: blacked out borderland from an exponential crisis (Ethel Zine & Micro Press; aug 2023).
Image Credit: Mysid “An analog TV showing noise, on a channel with no transmission” Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia.
As It Ought To Be 
