It is never enough. The three riders
arrive with gifts. The woman brings food.
The child looks with admiring eyes.

Something else is triggered. He hears
unaccountably the voice of someone he knew.
He pulls back the curtain. No one.
At night he opens his depths
and dreams. He will not appear.
He turns to the old part of himself
known since a boy. Gone.
The door open in the night wind
and on the oak table a note.
"I am to be trusted but you are not”.

He remembers everything he can. His face.
His hands. The way he would rise as if to speak.
Oblivion begins to pull on its long shroud.
He has one moment before panic.
His voice ready to pounce on death
unsheathes its secret claws. His hour.
His place. His voice with its new sound.
A bunched animal cornered by stealth.

Then someone gets up, closes the door,
begins to speak.