Solatium

They station outside the house
with irenic candles and a leitmotif
of heaviness, of blank weight.

We could talk but we don't.
We beat away the subject, in silence.
Zeitgeist knows not of spaces

in which to grieve.
I'd like advice,
I still pray sometimes.

I am shunned with a somniferous
sickness, lethargic and emptied.
My eyes caught in the saturnine sunlight

as water oozes from way-worn edges.
God, I miss you. Could we be restive?
You come to me in any and every

hallucination. This winter wind is an inclement
to my slender throat.
Let's face it

you're not returning
and though I still want to medicate
a sorry situation

I bow my head gracefully,
thank the guests with a stolid smile
because no matter what your God, the autocrat, has pilfered you

he has no intention
of bringing you within reach of me.
The end is listless.