Do You Hear the Whispers?

When did they begin, when the heat kicked on the air?
Rumble, sigh, murmur, thick air damp with sound--
Whispers, Jeff, that rustle through the paperwork
While the machines wring the breath itself and you hear
Whispers, Jeff, outside the door and down the hall.
Your office smelt of summer salt and then it smelt of autumn.
Somewhere leaves are burning, Jeff, somewhere down the hall
Beyond the door where the water is dying, Jeff,
Beyond corridors dark as the night building, filled
With whispers, Jeff.
Until the smoke puffs through the vent and all the leaves
Are crackling likes the jaws of something surfacing upon
A field of bones and fire. Tell me, Jeff, are these the jaws
That whispered a little while before, the ones that sighed
As the damp drained off, the ones who parted to lick
All the leaves the swamp has left behind when the waters
Found their mercy, Jeff, and rose above the stink?
Something hungry came for all the leaves, burning
Underneath for just this piquant rottenness.
Do you hear the whispers, Jeff?
Do you hear the fire?