Crushing Silence…

Like a film knowing not the screen
from its passed-over origin of script,
or a ring-tone vibrating endlessly
in a house that never was,
where a forsaken past
meant dust would never find purchase,
locks would be unneeded,
and windows forever enclosed breath
that never spoke.

I go on picturing you of frightened tears,
beholden only to a mistaken heart,
the beating of your precious muscle
still withering even though your grave
may be of dying grace.

For unread words are all you left me,
expression finding no period,
no question marks of innocent query,
no exclamations of childhood joy,
teenage discovery,
or adulthood maturity,
only the endless comas of
a paperless diary refusing to end.

Like a train off its track,
once careening around suicidal curves,
its sorrow will shortly plummet into the abyss
of forbidden births,
coming to rest in the darkness of attachment,
the mother/son utterance no one else can hear.

Such is the crushing silence
of one’s unknown identity.