Photograph

This is a camera's click, a
paper's flash,
a lens flare,
and your face is no more, my dear.
Your closed quiet face is no more.

This is the blotted
page, the mottled
stain, spreading fast, ever still on the square
of illusional silverprint locked in a drawer
where I once found a silverfish scurrying dear,
and I once lost a lock of your hair.

This is a number, or seven.
Odds are even
now it wouldn't fail to reach your ear.
When the meaning isn't ---
and the past is a deafening cadence,
there's enough time between us for silence.
Enough is behind us for --- .