You all look at me with those eyes.

Beads reflecting light—
illuminating expression.

Are there for me or for someone else?
Are you speaking to me?

Or do I cast your eyes for a reflection of myself?

Some may look at me offended, telling me to back off.
The others look and think to themselves or don’t think at all, just stare.

I wonder what you think of me when I don't force my impressions on you.

Misfired signals; the boat abandoned to the sea.

They told me in the hospital,
with white walls echoing like a tomb,
"Your wife is dead."
I stood there, hollow,
my ears ringing with the absurdity of it.
I wanted to go home,
sit at her feet,
and tell her what happened
so she could tell me what to do
because that is how life worked:
I carried my burdens,
and she untied them with her hands.
She was my wife, yes,
but more than that
she was my mother when I faltered,
my friend when the night grew too heavy,
the compass I leaned on
when the road split into shadows.
Without her,
the air has no map.
The rooms in our house
stare back at me like strangers.
The bed is an endless field of absence.
Oh God,
why is it that women
are not like her anymore?
Why must her kind vanish
the kind who pour themselves out
until the world is softer,
the kind who hold you steady
when you don’t even know
you’re falling?
If love was a language,
she was its first word
and its last silence.
And now I am left,
stammering,
trying to spell my life
without her name.

A sound broke the silent air,  
sharper than any jagged stone.  
Tongues braced, a fire was born;  
shapes rose, carved not in bone.  

From breath, the first blade grew.  
Speech bled where fists withdrew.  
Peace stumbled, new on its feet.  
Words began what stones complete.

O words, you kiss before the lips,
a trembling heat, a slow eclipse.
You press the skin without a hand,
a secret tide, a hidden land.

You slip between the ribs unseen,
where hunger wakes and hearts convene.
More supple than a lover’s hair,
more naked still than bodies bare.

You moan in breath, you sigh in song,
you linger sweet, you burn too long.
A nerve’s caress, a bowstring’s hum,
you strike me deep, I come undone.

O words, unlace me, seam by seam,
make language flesh, make silence dream.
To walk unclothed within your fire,
and taste the ache of full desire.