He wakes each day to quiet, empty rooms;
He thinks (a touch too much) but seldom speaks.
His blanket swallows dawn like pauper’s debt.
The walls rehearse his name, then let it leak
back into the alabaster plaster.
.
He falls through days like dreams that won’t be kept.
Each step erased, each breath a brief deceit.
His heart’s a house where many guest have slept.
He never learned the language of the sweet,
never bent the knee and never asked her.
.
The end arrives in iambs, soft and slow;
a tidal drum beneath his ribs’ thin dome.
Unwittingly, she’ll call to ‘no one home’.
The shape of him just skin stretched over bone.
He shall sail alone to ever-after.
.
.
©LorraineVoss.Jan2026
Lorraine Voss (aka Ven) 