Transparent

Blind Curtain, Unknown Artist

I remember when she was beyond alive.

Her footfalls made her old house shudder.

Her white hair made the full moon shy.

There was something magnetic

about her eyes, transparent,

and riddled as they were with cataracts.

How they darted in the dark

like tumbling diamonds in the raw.

How they knew what I wanted to say

before I even thought it.

How she

and I . . .

and we . . .

How we talked

without speaking.

And how she went away

one day . . . just like that.

Sometimes,

I call her into my dreams,

maybe to try and remember her better.

Sometimes,

a wind rushes by, so very close,

and we sit together, the wind and I.

I close my eyes.

I hear a heartbeat.

This is my heart, I tell myself.

The rain glides over my slanted rooftop

and falls in rippling platinum sheets.

My shoulders ache for

the breath of her eyes . . . transparent . . . transparent.

I do not weep.

I do not flee.

I sit.

I trust.

In a few hours,

the rain will stop.

This night will end.

Morning will come.

A bird will sing.

The sun will fall in angles

through the half-open shutters.

Light will reign.