This was the one I wanted to write,

the answer to all the riddles:

an orange nihilism;

a soundless bittersweet poison;

shallow breaths in a wading-pool;

hesitancy in an ocean.

This was my hand, stayed.

My heart, stopped and

hidden

from eyes that should have seen.

This was the song

I would have sung

if I had dared,

and all the dances

the rhythm was never right

to join.

This,

this is the shape of too much silence,

choked answers and hands played too close,

dense fogs of obscured meaning

throttled in surfeit of thought.

This is ambiguity all dressed up and alone,

different, somehow,

from what came before;

this, today, tomorrow,

a riddle with unshaded eyes

perhaps at last

leaving backward glances behind.