I would beseech you to say anything
for your mouth is a sacred place
a thin, modest gate where even
your fits of grand or ill humour
are formed into soft, tender shapes.

I know well enough to leave that gate shut
so that no beautiful tempests can billow out, curtain-like
and sweep us off our feet, blowing us so far apart that
I cannot find you again.

And so I sit cross-legged before you,
fists under my chin like a little child.
Listening to your silence
and wondering how you are.

Even in this silence

there is solace.




                                       *I miss you.