It's hard to know from where you rang out, and how the tone changed from memory to sorrow. Perhaps all those little cuts from the knife of Aristotle came with a price. Or maybe the polygraphic wildlife detected in your letters, enough to stir the inner fabric of my womb, drew out the scent. This is more than obligation, child. This is about the seasons of force or choice. And how the aural disintegrations from your mouth sound so effortlessly submitted and submerged. I fear they've turned to acceptance, their floral remnants as besieged as a Sarajevo Rose. My love for you will never live on the margins. This love is a tree-lined battlement. An endless voyage on the barometric sea.

It's so hard to know from where you rang out. But worse, I suppose, to hear nothing at all. Nothing until ambulance day. And the words a mother should never have to endure.