w i d o w s p e a k

After several days without words,
I find them again, not by magic, but instead
with the deliberate clomp of heels on march
the deliberate cold the widows catch
because, why not? they seek a reason for sleep,
a reason to seize upon bedrest and the covers
covering them, of course, a cold widowed hand
grasping another, the sound of one hand
being silent.

Yes, silence. The pale spit of words
fires no more upon the galleys, staid,
forlorn, a white mist rising out of the sea.
How many pains can a body catalogue?
The body politic, the warmth rushing out of her tongue
and into a cold cup of tea, its heat now gone.

But what of her ferry delivers?
She’s alone now on this island
for how long? nobody knows. That usual rogue state
wherein the mist howls fully aware of its ignorance
about matters of war and taste.

That’s how we veil ourselves, anyway, as languish
covered by a pall. We are
outside ourselves once more. In tune
with the turning seasons and the trumpets
(forlorn) about which the captain wrote.

Another stop: the captain. The constant shrine
around which you revolve, revolved, still
yet you chase him. But with weariness,
now. He isn’t in the boat
any longer. He’s far off to sea – you know
that, now – and yet, you keep looking
every morning
toward the bright gray dawn.