Speech closed-door softened,
key perched on the bone-white bed,
the emissary fragrance of lilacs
and roses, jasmine and heliotrope,
the offering that suggests your presence:
such stratagems to arrange the floating
leisure-labor hours spent alone,
your calling card absence.
Consider, though, how I became
unseen and free: cast all your dear ones
over the water, chart them a course
to strange shores, where tongues shape
sounds like green kindling spitting on a fire.
Feel their eyes pierce you transparent
until there is no one left to watch you
become invisible.
Gulf Stream Magazine 