Frederic's House

Except for creaks and rattles,
Frederic's house is quiet.

Frederic's wife talked a lot -
too much, he'd thought sometimes -
but he'd never asked for her silence.
She had been his lover and his friend;
his completion.

He closes the curtains on the empty street,
the grey December sky,
and thinks a single silent day
passes more slowly than forty years.