Lying Close

Lying with her,
Lying close,
Lying while her past escapes in silver whispers.

Lying with her,
Lying close,
Lying while the unspoken
Is a rough coal in my own throat.

Her soft voice is as that
Of the single quail at dusk —
Easy and artless.

My silence fails to announce
The purposeful, leaning
Turn of the falcon’s arc.

Lying with her,
Lying close,
Lying by omission.

(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2013

First published by Dead Snakes, May 2013:

http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2013/05/eric-robert-nolan-two-poems.html

“Coturnix Novaezelandiae (New Zealand Quail),” Charles Joseph Hullmandel, “The Zoology of the Voyage of the H.M.S. Erebus & Terror,” 1844