If I Could Throw My Voice

like the ventriloquist,
I would make it speak
through the lamp

beside your bed,
when moonlight
chisels features

on the marble pillow
with its chiaroscuro,
deepening the edges,

leaving the high cheekbones
and flat planes
sunken and breathing solemnly

while the heart
roars like a furnace,
fed the memories of a lifetime,

destroying whatever evidence
links our names.
And I would have it say

I am sorry for the place
you're in, the strings
that pull you out of bed

each morning, make you
wake in someone else's arms,
and I would tell you that it's me

who hovers near
when in between
the carefully designated minutes

of your day a blank appears,
like the unfinished pre-dawn sky
that hasn't figured out

if it's white or blue or gray,
and for a few moments
cradling your coffee you

think of nothing, miss nothing,
look toward nothing,
and I would

cut the strings right there,
and let you stay,
attended by a ghost,

that envelopes
and protects you like
fog off the bay

and softens and erases
edges, corners, faces
that don't register,

words that don't belong,
including these from
who knows where.

Copyright © 2007 Keith Althaus All rights reserved
from Meridian
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission