Like Distance

The tortured voices of rain and window, Like cold hands that tremble, Touch, but pass no intimate remark, And stay the silver tongues of discourse. Then, silver against the moonlight, A host of fears become knives That terrorise my sleep, And cut chill the warmth of slumber. Warm hands suffer cherished faces To sting, like the caress of a betraying kiss, Breaking familiar horizons Upon a cascading rhetoric, like distance; Until my words, like distance mirrors Reflecting jumbled images, realise at last Their abuse of language, Allowing the night its tortured silence.