Word to my Wife

Turn and destroy this silence. Solid as iron
it stands between us, but need not divide us.
Strike it with your soft shifting, like a tempest
or goddess; knock it down; though now you lie calm

in its shadow, it should not daunt you, my love, my wife.
O shatter the frail foundations of this wall
I've built between us; come, send the splinters flying.
A breath will do it, enough breath for a word.

Because this burden lies heavy. I write recumbent
an hour after midnight, having again imposed
upon myself a sentence of separation,
a useless absence, apart from you, my treasure.

You lie in a web of quietness, deftly weaved
of tendrils tense with anger, and might be sleeping.
Let this construction fail, my tactless building; come,
kill my designs with an exhalation, a sigh's thunder.