On the Other Hand

            *

unwelcomed night

footsteps tread

an overgrown path

i cannot see i

do not know

where it goes

morning rush hour

the traffic backed up

impatient drivers stuck

waiting to move from

whence they come

their windows closed

the signal changes

i lose my chance

to ask them why

            *

there never was

an answer

the lake house

needed repair

who knew

what was coming

only half the big tree stood

after the summer storm

chickadees perched on

the feeder just to watch

you said you were only

along for the ride

the take-out arrived

not what you ordered

she returned to get

something she forgot

the hoisting chain for the

dock girdled the old pine

she joked her broken

heart still pumps

no wind the sailboat

had a slow leak

through clear water

you saw smooth stones

when the boat sank

you floated above the wreck

she swam to

the far shore 

the dead whispered

their opinions           

you remembered

the ending

            *

after her death

our conversation

living to dead

dead to living

transformed

imperceptibly in

increments of

fading memory

the words landed

supple sensual again

soft with forgetting

whispers about

what remained replaced

the dirge to what wasn’t

i was no longer afraid

syllables i

did not understand

stirred me from

sleep woke me

from our dream

it was a

dusk of sorts

the sun slipping

quietly behind the

purple mountains

to which she had led me

holding all that is

without a thought

            *

not so for

the killing speech

the living use

to break their long silences

unspoken conversations

unleashed screams

a torrent of sound

with no meaning

in an ever-deafening crescendo

memories become muggers

sneaking from rubble

in an abandoned park

you want nothing

but it is noon

it is hot and

the white light

reflects off metals

you must see

but cannot