Speak once more

Speak — again.
Stay —
as the hallway’s hum,
the meter’s ticking drum,
Connecticut, that northern rain,
the thrum
of wind against a silent pane.
With me, remain.

Just rise with me.
And turning back —
don’t speak.
Your breath is near,
more real than loss,
than thought,
than fear.

Stay —
as the hallway’s tick,
Connecticut cold,
a northern flick
of wind —
behind a wall gone blind.
The self I lost, the self I find.

Be here with me.
Within this shared space —
cry;
and in the endless dance
of that spiral bloom,
sing —
where silence scatters light and gloom,
and breath becomes the room.

Take the piano.
Let the silence melt
with hints and guilt,
where July’s slow heat collects
in gutters —
dark and wet.
And nothing’s played,
and nothing’s said —
and yet.

Speak to me again.
The dusk has blurred
the town’s red spine.
Speak once more —
while on my canvas
hang,
in crooked rows,
the stars I failed to draw.

I breathe in thaw.