The black bread of your name
I carry under my tongue –
Like a word already burned,
But still aching with its taste.
The language is dead.
But I speak it anyway.
I lay you upon the page,
Like a bird without wings –
Let it rest.
Your name, seared by six digits,
Still whispers within me
In a tongue no longer taught.
I kissed the ashes, for they were your eyelashes.
I wrote with ink
That seeped from the bones.
And in every verse –
A little blood, a little disbelief.
A little of you –
Whom I did not save.
From the Hall of Silence
18