SHAPE OF ABSENCE XI
A young girl, suddenly, unsuspectedly got caught out
in the sorrowful night. Then what was her life,
and her pain, and her cry? Are all these hers
and they waited behind her laughter ready and
conniving? And these beloved persons
who stooped over her, already aloof? For this,
she opened the door of a star quietly and entered
carefully that we wouldn’t hear her,
though every night that door echoes from the wind
of her soft sob. And she couldn’t get up and
close it; nor did we (so far away it was).
Hellenic Canadian Literature 