Medusas

Here is the silence
fill it with words

out of the shadows falling on this room
capture the day in retrospect

like a lamp that refuses to light
until you touch it


I speak to you
through her these days
and she speaks of her medusa
and how, as always
it wears a familiar face.

I get her the same gift every year
but now my gifts only
collect the shadows on a shelf
She has outgrown them,
but I was away
and now I don't know
what words to get her.

Once more, change the dial:
this time it is the prize
they gave her for her limbs
I wonder if she resents the gesture
or only misses the feeling in her leg.

And now under the covers
where the cold has made a nest
where I have made acquaintance
with the blankness of his back.

Quick, the last thread of light
is dissolving, soon they will fire
the cannon--somewhere,
some other time--
the days all die the same.

Now you can hear the whine
of frigid empty air grazing the floor
It's just you and it now;
don't look; it's not there.