i accept the silence

"Abstraction White Rose" by Georgia O'Keeffe

silent

my dead grandmother

forever silent

and cold

and alone

but there are secrets to be shared

and confidences to be breeched

and promises to be broken

you come to me

you read me your letters

her letters

letters returned

unopened

unanswered

and you tell me

your mother has a black heart

and

glass

your eyes

glass filmed over

by gentle breaths in unforgiving cold

and glass

the wall that separates us

we can see

but not touch

we can look

eyes drifting

desiring

and our hands can reach out

for intimacies that can no longer be realized

your mother has always scorned affection

you say

and my heart wants to jump to my mother’s defense

maybe out of fear that she will hear

from her place so far away

this mute conversation

that gouges loyalty in the throat

i want to tell you about those times

my mother had looked at your black and white photo

hanging on her living room wall

and said she looked like the actress in that old movie

the white rose

but i recognize the past tense

and the word old

is a cloud over a full and beaming moon

i want to tell you my mother

has always been affectionate

but your daughter and my mother

though the same person in appearance

are two different women in essence

so i sit on my chair

in silence

and see you as if through a peeling mirror

mirror

the back of your china cabinet

where i looked at myself as a child

amidst the glimmer of french porcelain

and i counted my freckles as if they were coins

and i thought i could fly

and i remember running down the hill

outside your house

running breathless and effortless

the ground rising like slow motion

rising to meet me

my heart lifting

bloodless and fleshless

feeling like if i stepped into the air

i could fly

before doubt grabbed a hold of me

and wed me to the asphalt

you cleansed my face

of blood and shards of macadam

and your voice was gentle and steady

as you lulled me to sleep that night

and i sit with you now

and your hand is cold

and your face is ice

but even in death you are so beautiful

and tears stream from your eyes

and i try to tell your tears

i try to tell them you are not dead

but they quiet me and tell me about

tormented spirits and haunted souls

and glass

your body

and mirror

your soul

and you are here and you are not

light and weightless

like a shadow on a wall

and i want to say things

grandmama

as if this moment does not know

the meaning of itself

as if to cover the silence

but the words shun my lips

so we sit still

you

with me

with you

and time accordions between us

and we accept the silence

and we close our eyes

and i see

your extinguishing presence

sharp as a pinprick to a blind woman’s finger

and there are yet gulfs to bridge

and labyrinths to unravel

but you speak

as you go

only

of the thirst of a mother

for her daughter’s love

and all of what you say

you say not with your lips

but with your eyes

and all of your words

i hear with my heart

because death and absence

are not an end

but an eternity

and so

i accept the silence