Signs
You have no voice for grief,
only your hands
limp at your sides,
your hands closed to a fist.
It is more eloquent
than I can support
how you take your hands to the window
and slowly, very slowly,
as if at the urging of light,
open one, watching the hollow
yield to flesh.
Each finger would be a child.
A man is no different
than a woman in this:
the body changes to accommodate loss.
But let me tell you, my love,
the story of mute Zechariah,
who recovered his voice
when a son was born to him at last.
