Somebody died three houses down

					                     it was the girl – and this is what I want to say – 
she was sixteen and could not breathe

					                     air failed to travel its path and floated
just beyond her reach. She could not speak

					                     and worst of all, no one heard her reaching.
Silence is never silence;

					                     darkness and cloud-cover cushion volume
but they are not impassable.

					                     I sat outside; no wind carried the pain 
from the home three houses down

					                     yet I felt death by the handful emptying its load 
onto my lap, skin absorbing the heavy loss

					                     it spilling from my chest, my eyes 
pouring pictures out, tacit words shooting

					                     from my mind. You were there:
in the op-shop hammock hanging

					                     from the longest branch, you near-winter rapt 
to be lazing, drenching in the big sun

					                     and a thin grey jumper, there was a bottle 
of water resting in the curve of your hip

					                     the novel you had been talking about 
sleeping on your full breast, and then

					                                         you were dead –  
the loss of your breath

					                     felt in the stillness of the leaves. 
Death was not death that day

					                     even in autumn, when sunflowers refused to rise,
but something like silence, like darkness

					                     and cloud-cover. Sometimes I reach 
for your phantom body as if I am trying not to fall.

					                     I cannot breathe or speak
and this is what I want to say – I might die

					                     the heart ceding to long stretches between go
and go, the brain too tired to dictate to the heart

					                     and no one, my love, no one would hear my reaching.