Joseph Lisowski writes

FROM DEATH’S SILENCE [part I]

[Shortly after Christmas one year while we were living in the Virgin Islands, our 20 year old daughter Chrissy left our sunny St. Thomas home and flew to New Hampshire to be with her new boyfriend.  About 5 a.m. on February 29, we get a call from a doctor in New Hampshire telling us Chrissy is dead—alone in a one car accident, no drugs or alcohol involved.  The more we learned, the more suspicious the circumstances surrounding her death became.

“From Death’s Silence” is a collection of poems focusing on her, our loss.]

DEATH'S SILENCE

Death's silence is a storm

that cracks trees

breaks leaves

from dawn to dusk.

Until there is nothing

but bare wood.

And night becomes a dark terror

that cannot scream.

It is sudden,

complete.

Like the snapping

of a neck.

DESERT WIND

I am reckless in this wind.

Heat whistles through my limbs.

Another day empty of promise

envelopes another night.

A film covers my eyes,

dark negative

of the hour, the minute

my daughter died.

I wake that moment

every day.  In darkness

there is nothing.

Then roosters and dogs,

sometimes voices cursing,

an occasional gunshot.

Dawn eventually tints my window.

I rise by habit, believing there is no choice.

EMPTY VESSELS

Words are such empty vessels,

brittle, chipped, cracked,

unable to bear the weight

of loss, agony, regret.

When death strikes, they dissipate

like dust in a sudden gust.

My daughter is dead, I repeat.

(I held her broken body. 

A fingertip touch told me

it was not she--my eyes

blanched by her lifeless form).

I feel her presence unexpectedly

in familiar places--a walk along the beach,

a glimpse in my rear view mirror,

in the croaking voice of her brother's grief.

Her mother keens again, rocking in failed light.

I sit near her darkness and sway.

What we had is gone.  What we have is . . . .

GRIEF

Is there hope?

I swat at mosquitoes,

the relentless heat.

Their droning continues.

I get stung again

and again.

AFTERMATH OF ACCIDENT

Muscles bend like oxidized rubber,

bones relax. Marrow shifts like jelly

then settles when I sit.

Long day becomes long night.

This is what comes of trusting others.