You, who outdid Scheherazade have grown
excommunicatory, withholding the wafer of speech,
no longer spinning tales, silent as a stone,
unlisted number that I no longer reach.
Strange how such distances arise,
where comets can circle close and then depart,
retreating into emptiness, into skies
which chill with endless dark the human heart.
And I who feasted on your every word
now starve. Or rather do contrive these lines,
imaginary conversations that are not heard,
questions without answers, left to my own designs.
But who can say which has the greater power,
silence or language, each which has its hour?