And then there was something to say...

I have not written anything for months. Months. Remember the story about that woman in Idaho who didn't write anything for ten years. She said one day the words just ran out. One day she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Then one day, all those years later, the words came back to her and then there was something to say.

Maybe that is what happened to me.

If all this silence

was what it took to say goodbye.

Days of saying nothing,

so the wrong things would not get said;

would not be laid out on the table;

would not sit between us like so many other regrets.

Then I would quiet my mouth.

I would let the day drift by unsounded--

its clean, yellow light falling on the table

its warmth lying between us.

I would sit until the darkness came

and you had left the scene in silence.

--mb