To say, “I’m sorry” to the air

the thin air, against the weathered stone

cold as bone that you are always

never permitted to speak again

to move those saintly smiles through

and through you are grinning at the void

and lost, where I will not meet you

because I was lost in myself

enough to forget you

and no simple word in sadness will meet those muted ears

or sun swim in those stony eyes

to be closed like a book once read

never opened again

no more soft words to follow

no more aches in your ache-beaten back

you have fallen to the side of sleep

and only dreams of silence will take you

far from me, and my endless apologies

like fire in the sea

I will pray to the wind
and find flowers
for my failure

In all our million days

dusk to dusk

like an open wound you will smile again

and like death itself be forever.