If you read me close enough
you may still smell traces
of a word meant
to echo in only you.
If you heard the way
it becomes spoken with my own lips,
a taste may not be enough
to say you have tried.
If you ever wondered
where the essence has gone, it is cold;
I only ask you to exhale me enough so
I may hear you near inside thick air.
If the silence were not
as sublime
as the word,
would we have this between us?
Art entitled, 'Woman at the Piano' (1889), oil on wood panel, 26.0 x 13.1 cm) by Tom Roberts (1856–1931).
The painting is in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia.
