Silence

Alone on the shore, I watch the wind
push-pull the water in place, towards me, away.

What melody is this? What verse? Whose song
unfolds the chambers of my stuttering heart?

Bloody shouts, rifle fire, a hundred birds in flight.
I scream it a thousand times: I never craved this release.

A mirror, a feather, an apple, the sky.
Held fast, I am oblique; I am drowning.

To abandon this pressure, to murder this loss.
There is no strength in silence. There is no silence at all.

Fingers stubbed bloody, palms bruised, wrists raw,
I close my eyes and wait trembling in the dark.