Secrets about Nothing
I saw it first as suggestion,
the words held on the tongue
when our reflected faces,
lit by lightning,
flashed in the window glass
then disappeared. We both drew in
our breaths and looked away.
It echoes in the stillness
after words, the narrative
welling up from your eyes-
like the hollowness that follows
the hunting dog as he raises
his eyes, then voice
to the yellow moon and bays.
And it magnifies
in the eyes of those no longer young
as they take on thick faces.
The slow, puckering
thread of age
stitches loosely
across my mirror.
Once it hung in a crystal charm,
this secret about nothing,
and at its center
my children's faces turned
to old men's,
and old men's back to boys'.
I play checkers, crowning nothing.
That year you said it would be
a cold spring, with no grass
or petals. We sentenced ourselves
to the conditional and I began
sucking on air,
a lozenge
thinning to sweetness at the core.
Tonight the eaves fill
with wind,
lightning whitens us,
our bed. By the window screen
a book blows open to one
blank page then another.
Passion begins here.
Structure
42 lines · 6 stanzas