The silence this morning is songless,
it hisses between my heartbeats…
I listen for the blackbird but his tree
has retreated to the forest.
I am over the border in a white room.
In my dream my father’s mouth is a cave…
it hangs open, expecting nothing.
I breathe his last breath in, it is gone.
My hand lies softly on his sallow skin,
he is peaceful, yet grotesque…
why is this the final mask I see?
as if all the others had left with him.
Back in the shock of today’s sunlight,
I am awake, a year away from his bedside…
I am deeper in the cave of his absence,
the dark is darker, the silence louder.