Unmounted oilgraph // 5” x 8”

"this play
has been hard to watch

but watch i have
though now from a distance
(newly taken)

but you were so lovely...
still still and yet still

i breathed with you
even in a room of many
a hundred voices rose cacophany
but yours...
yours even in your silence
wrote upon me like
the soft finger of waking
on that winter morning (February i recall)
and sealed forever
a letter from
a greater hand

and with your voice
awakened mine
a tango in the currents of morning
a flight
on paper wings which
drew me flame
and smoking fall
to earth

and again and again to earth
i walk (now) i listen
listen still
(perhaps a fragile illusion)
for the chorus that once promised...

but this was long ago
and now other soldiers take the field
wave (that means I) a sad flag of surrender
at a war waged at the clouds
refusing to part but
glow with a light
that can't be unseen

and so for that light
i burn
and burn still |
candles for everything you are
a brilliance of shocking night sun
singular
and named..."