Descant

Night inhabits 
the empty space
behind my eyes,
creating drapes
I cannot draw,
doors I dare not open,
stones rolled back
to block the tomb.

In a dream, long gowns
move like whispers
brushing across marble floors,
and frightened eyes
gouge at the moonlit sky,
concealing in a box
under the bed
those bits torn away,
treasures to be experienced,
pains to be endured.

I study ways
to disappear,
to abandon myself,
to turn and run,
to fade like print
on a yellowed page.

In the good old days,
when I was in for the ride
and not the destination,
how many of me were there?
Can you tell me their names,
all the names,
falling from memory's sky
like bird shit,
splashing against windows,
marbling laundry left out to dry?

Share with me the secrets
you dragged out of them
and I will raise stones
to mark those who are no more,
to reveal a presence
that absence leaves behind.

© 4.28.2016 Paul Wittenberger

Poem For My Daughter

On the patio
the sandbox
where you once played
sits upturned 
like some great green turtle,
its carapace broken,
sand castles blown away,
an unspoken desert between us,
lost to another day

© Paul Wittenberger