இரு மௌனங்கள்

Like a receipt once held in the hand,worn thin at the fold,its ink bled away,no longer able to be read —

Like a book read to its last page,left on the shelf,gathering dust,its pages turned yellow,waiting —

Like a gold coin,clutched tight the moment it was earned,that slips through the torn seamof a shirt pocketand is lost —

Like honey gatheredover ten thousand journeys of carried pollen,when the hive breaks,dripping into the dirt,drying away —

Like an egg —the nest lined white and soft with cotton,the pair settled in,joined, and brooding over it —that slips, falls,and breaks —

Like a child left at a boarding school,who watches the other children’s parentsdrop them offand drive away,and swallows the ache —

So I, too, came to know it,when — after we had grown close and easy together —to my asking,“Stay with me, always, as my own” —she was silent at first,and then said,“I don’t feel that way.”