the word
like a lover 

turning away
for the last time
          
and not coming back,

or a signal flag 
on a severed mast, utterly 

still, and no one found;

like the smoke rising
from a bombed city,

the moonlight passing
an empire of ruins,

or a life unlivable
(the darkness coming

through the icy film 
of a dying breath),          

and the pounding silence,

the crushing weight.