You sit beside me, not quite silent,

As the glow sinks below the sails

Of ships that have sailed since the time

You wrapped your safety gently

Around my quivering four-year-old body

And told me that death was not then.

But now is still not then,

And we have changed: I more silent

And you stronger for the body

That has carried you, you, the sails

Of a vessel that will cradle you transcendently, gently.

Alas, if it weren’t for time.

Do you remember that time

When you betrayed me then,

As you have done too often since, not gently

But thrummingly, when I wanted you silent?

I wanted to tell you that beyond my sails

You were nothing, when really you are the center of my body.

Are you the same in the body

Of a flea? Time

Flows differently, rapidly, sails

Through life, cuts short, then

Descends into blackness. Is it silent?

Does it tear perfectly? Or even gently?

I like to think, as the sun sets gently,

That my mind without my body

Is something substantial, not something silent,

Something that transcends time,

That outlives corporeality, and then

Some, takes flight on deathbed sails.

I cannot comprehend how something set off on the sails

Of a body, of you who support me totally and gently

Thrumming on the frame of my being, will then,

One day, suddenly become not my body.

End of time.

Silent.

Now, you throb triumphantly, flaunting sails that carry my body

Ever so gently, warmly, marking off time
Deliberately then and now and until the end, yet to others, silent.