Soonest Nathaniel Scholes writes

         In your silence

..... For Ronke Fapohunda...

I’ve lost my ears

To your rancorous silence,

A stone. I shed no tears,

Lest I bear summer’s consequence.

Graves 

Echo in octaves, 

Sleepers murmur;

I have my staff paper, but your music I cannot score.

Dots, dashes,

Notches, lozenges:

They’ve become conventional again,

I’ve gotten used to summer rain.

The reindeer still crosses the ford;

I still remember how to find God;

I find him even now through your cold body,

Every curve a testimony of his glory.

Oh, forgive this Dante speaking from hell,

Of a heaven where angels dwell,

But sometimes reality speaks no language,

She only gestures, grunts and grimaces.

Do we need a tongue to express change,

Or a voice for the joy the sun’s kiss plants on flowers’ faces?

I know how ants tell truth from falsehood,

I don’t need a diviner to tell when the nymph is in the mood.

Don’t call, don’t ping,

Heavens will fall if the phone does ring,

Don’t chat, don’t text,

Hell will rip my heart, and then what next?

Graves are temples, mourning is ritual,

But don’t bury me just to mask the odor of putrescence;

Woman what we share is beyond the physical,

The taste on my lips is valid evidence.

Rio, this bond is beyond spiritual,

Oh, mother I hear God still, I still hear him even in your silence.