A: I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove.
Z: That I have – nothing – to prove.
A: This path is shadow.
Z: Yes, this I know
Z:
Your silence frightens me.
I search but cannot find
any travel signs to navigate
your plentitude—only yield
and stop.
Your House
has been lightless—
and I worry about you.
Yesterday I threw green
pebbles at your bedroom
window—to no avail.
Did you find
the cathedral bells and
Japanese plum peonies
I left at the garden door?
A:
Yes, darling. The inchworm
green bells and one hundred
plum petals found me.
Buoyed me, in fact.
I have been sleeping
by the fire too many hours—
and wake with coldness
etched into every bone
and frayed nerve.
I am studying
the movement of
dragon-orange
blazing flames—
and throw pages
[from defunct diaries
I want no one to read,
even me] to feed it—
before sleep’s goddesses
pull me under the darkness
when I wake without
you.
Can you read these loops
of my delipidated
cursive—that even I
don’t recognize?
Pardon my silence,
darling. There is much
to attempt to comprehend
that eludes me—jumpy
sparrows—that will not
still.