STILL VOICE by Judie Maré
I'd never hear your voice again
except within my heart,
So searched the sky, the clouds a-skim
that waited to depart.
I felt a bead and heard the patter
strike against my cheek.
The rain, my tear―a merging matter
caught rivulets turned bleak.
Again, a tap, another drop
slid down aside my head.
No reassurance here to swap
a sounding for the dead.
Low whisper of a wind rushed by
and then two doves in flight
both arrow straight, a cooing cry,
a jealousy, a slight.
Black thunder shattered white with veins
that crackled in my chest―
excited beats, a gasp in chains,
fast echo, then, arrest.
Death did not close my ears just yet,
a sound both hoarse and deep―
as if I owed it some last debt―
assaulted me to sleep.
When Earth presented noise to me
to fill your voice's void,
turbulence flowed as a bruit,
heart's arteries annoyed.
A lance of love once pierced my breast
and opened up a song.
Now, cold as ice, a winter's breath
stills, frozen on its prong.
