Your silence rested
on a scarred back deck
with a ring of keys, a broken lock,
a twisted pin, a rusted hinge,
a soiled handkerchief,
a pocketknife, a tea-stained cup,
a loop of string, a vial of tacks,
five dog-eared paperbacks,
one red canvas chair atilt.
Beyond the clutter of a green back door,
piles of scavenging and weeds,
driftwood on the shores of seventy.

There was no witness to your death
no health history, no cuts, no scars,
no x-rays or broken bones, no blood count,
no instructions, no last note,
nothing in your writing left.
No letters, email, cards,
no computer, no cell phone.

Beyond the reach of change,
with hindsight scrambling,
I hold on to temporary truths
put a bookmark in those stories
where complicity was formed.

There are no words for what we had,
compulsion of old silence, overtaking,
strangling like a vine.

Last time I saw you,
your grey hair braided,
your face so pale, withdrawn,
so I invented you
the air slick with parentheses
and all of us nearsighted now.