Speak now or forever

I wish the dead would speak

more quietly, no louder

than other whisperers at weddings

but from closing-in walls they growl.

Do they imagine we can't hear

them, only sense their displeasure

at each unweighed vow?

From the east they look down

upon our inconstant avowals of love,

and from beneath our feet

where their names lie heelworn

reproach me for the tainted gift of mine.

How this breathless moment is filled

with the revelations of ghosts.

I wish the dead would lie still.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet