Black windows at this hour, this time of year,
breed silence of a kind that pulls the world
in tight around me; a candle and one bulb
throw just the light to see my face outside.

The cares of this long day, if there at all,
melt into a velvet void contained
like inky water by reflecting glass.
A face, my own, moves with me as I pass.
                        

The responsibility for something said
weighs on his after-mind like liquid lead,

the witty, unintended quip he made
too quickly, and its dark stains will not fade.

The look his friend—his former friend?—returns.
He waits for retribution that he’s earned. 
                        

The meaning always lurks between the lines
waiting there, to be heard and understood
as something you intended anyway.
“I wrote it and it must be what I meant,”
you say, taking credit for accident.

Unless, of course, a friend turns what you’ve said
into a line you’d disapprove for others,
which turns your voice and mind a little colder.
“Intent,” you tell yourself, “like taste and beauty,
is always in the eye of the beholder.”