No Solace, Even in Words

 

When first I wrote of you, my rage,
seething and suffocating
strangled my throat. My voice emerged
a thin whisper, a drowning reed.

 

Back to the beginning.

 

Concrete the images —
thin face, cold and stern;
the long line of your back,
twisted as you turned away;
fey and strange, with no
human gentleness left for me.

 

There you were, and my ink
flowed easier, chronicling each
disappearing mark of love long gone
till you lay complete
and beautiful
upon the white sheets.

 

It seems the pen has betrayed my heart.

 

*****

October 8, 1996