Paper Anniversary

We cannot write poems about silence,
And that goes for the non-poets too.
We cannot write poems about nothingness either,
Although nothingness and silence have little in common.
So we are left with our brushes, pens, knives, tools of all sorts,
And our own mouths even, rotting and wounded,
With nothing to talk about.
I sit here day after day confronting my memory of you,
Looking at this green sad little picture of you,
All wadded up and dry in my mind,
Your hair curling in parabolic waves,
Your Mathematical eyes dismantling my every move,
And day after day I must remind myself-
We cannot write poems about silence.
This is why I fail every day,
Because you were never more than silence.