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.