Tempered Silence

Slicing through the last morsel of hope kept alive
but by the mercy of the tempered silence
stitched beneath her strength, his dystopian dagger
quashed her dead-on-arrival dream.

And like the dried primrose of autumn she fails to revive,
so too do those cerulean sobs fail to bring deliverance
to the daughter beside her, now languishing
beneath the implacable, starry night.

Cover photo: Alina de Albergaria, Morocco, 2011