I say someone in another age will remember us.

Where other singers, in time, became one with their stories,

melting immortal into the tales they crafted,

you turned back into mystery, barring the door

with a lattice of emptiness.

Remnants of words bind a silence together,

ribboned relics shape a labyrinth of loss;

immortal constellations of shattered papyri

give you safe harbour.

Stained fingers strive to tear at your secrets,

prying tongues probe for your most private places —

but they cannot now reach you. A wilderness of blank space

shields you like a mirror,

turning the gorgon-faced greed of your pursuers

upon themselves. Leave them to grope after

their images and idols. Your body is your own,

and your generous heart;

though from your paradise to mine, may your spirit still whisper

in the clean flowing of hands on a piano

and the pure, heartbreaking voice of a girl

on maturity’s threshold.

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