Elegy IV

(for L.V.T.)

I decline to hear your voice singing: Signor! Signor!
I fear its desolation.

Your voice extracted our moments
from ancestral history of torture,
approached the ultimate frontier
and returned to itself.
You proclaimed a liberation,
not yet missed or desired,
an imperative of your voice,
retrieved from childhood,
arriving at night, inoffensive yet playful.

Bitterness, in your voice,
originating from innocence,
devastated our communion.
You sang to offset the void.

Anwar Al-Ghassani
April 1, 1995

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Copyright (C) 1995 by Anwar Al-Ghassani