Night rain and I’m watching through my writing
room windows wrinkled crescents of water
flow down dark asphalt pavement, inviting
through powdered streetlights’ reflections after-
math of an old lover’s imagery – eyes
glowing as we strolled in rain, speaking so
softly of Akhmatova, how despised
she was by Stalin. “He silenced her po-
etry but not her truth,” my lover’s voice
whispers again. She turns up her trench coat’s
collar to block the cold, honors my choice
of silence as I study her soft throat
swallow hard, longing to say more of pain,
of Anna’s courage. We kiss, walk home again.
Roger Armbrust
October 6, 2019
