In the clinging mist
she knows no words but death.
The wooden box beneath
her bed embodies
the ice of her mourning, its lonely

tenant white and cold. When she
walks, the echo of her heels
strikes against the walls of her
grief, ricocheting around the streets,
until it pierces her shrivelled

heart. She lies awake in the
strangling darkness calling the
unnamed name, asking why the
white flame was quenched.
All the dark gives her in return

is silence,
and that box.