A moth falling, landing in my lap, as she then says.
‘Don’t worry, they worry me too, these moths, people.’
Then looking at the book open in my hand she says.
‘We’ve more in common than I thought.’

Words curled deep, somewhere below silence,
Somewhere below the distance that now exists
Between her smile and mine as she then says.
‘I can’t afford to get hurt again.’

That ‘hurt again’ sending shivers towards morning,
Its own forgetting, its own reasons to forget
That only after the waiting will she let me touch her,
Will she let me kiss her eyes closed,

In this place where her voice now falters and where,
Biting my tongue until it bleeds, she places herself
Beyond the power of speech,
Beyond the power of what even touch,

Or even the memory of touch can now begin to teach,
As mumbling she says. ‘Too late. Too late.’
Where I should call room service but where the telephone doesn’t work,
A strange stale smell on each pillow and her side of the bed still warm.

By John Gladwell