Reticence Poem by Christopher Shepheard

You nothing said,
Though your eyes swam like lapis lazuli
Deep set in summer seas,
Hanging a question on your reticence.

You left abruptly, not with a word,
A whisper, or a sign,
But dawdling into darkness like a star
Ungathered unto any galaxy
That radiates its light into the void
And nothing warms
Nor wears, nor either
Perishes;

For what are words but opiates
Corners to conceal discomfort in
Some apprehensive hours?

(1998)