I can hear you. You whisper to me.
Like a midnight vesper with your voice
cloaked in darkness, aching to be seen.
You are intangible. I reach and yearn
but you are lost.

I imagine you sometimes in the eyes
of the Lladro figure on my bookcase
the last thing you left to me
because no one else ever loved it the way you did.

She still feeds her swans, you know
that Lladro with her bright gaze
and tiny archaic smile.
She reminds me of you.

Sometimes I wonder if you’re there
and that’s why I hear your little voice
or smell your sweet perfume,
the twirl of her porcelain umbrella
wafting it through my bedroom’s stagnant air.

Onward, we travel, eyes shielded by off-white --
optimism. The blind lead the blind. Around our feet
the decrepit lie unseen. The blinded lose their sense
and the sound of weeping is kept in the blacks
and deepest greys, swallowed by relentless light.

Limbs drag against gravel, knuckles
******, leaving trails. We stoop in our agony,
ankles twisted like corkscrews. Still we persevere.
It is our hope that should we press on,
the pain will be rewarded. We are
consumed by instinct – survive.

We suffer most as we ignore the sting of existence.
We try to ignore the inevitability of death as we strive
again towards our prayers of a golden, personal prize.
We need salvation in the form of shelter
from the rain of sickened green and haze
that has stolen our sight.

As if it were on fire, the earth around us aches with
burgundy and ochre. The sun herself has dimmed;
an apology for the wrong she has done you.

Man-made angel, wings of wax and stolen feather,
melted against the heat of a grieving sun.
You played with the fates and so your string was cut.

The ladies of the river cry tears of salt and sorrow.
They dress you in their misery, silken fingers grazing
against scorched and lifeless skin.

Now, Icarus, you meet your final glory and
escape from Crete. Do you know the ties that bind you
have no bearing where you’ve gone?

Where perils cut
Do sorrows bleed?
Does pain depend upon
the laying of our scene
or are the plagues upon the race
a universal theme?
The winds are wanting
change and haunting
all the sleeping’s
most pleasant dreams.