Conversation

Conversation


I am making a habit of hiding through the day on the floor
of Peter’s car, covered by coats of my victims carefully
shorn of identifications.
Peter has not returned while I am here, or left evidence
of his presence while I am away.
Fending for myself has never been an issue.
I do wonder if he will reappear, under what circumstances.
Relationships with mortals don’t last long.
Usually their mortality is not what parts us.
I am not easy to know.
I don’t make light. I don’t make fun.
I watch, listen, rarely comment.
I am not social.
I was not raised to social grace.
I was taught to serve.
Serving only myself I employ no social skills
other than unobtrusive observation.
I respond, clearly, succinctly, when that opportunity
is offered.
Peter welcomed my silence as invitation to fill
our conversational space.
I welcome solitary silence as a refuge.
Knowing what to say, how to cleverly manipulate
with word associations, skills not encouraged in
lowly servants expected to be discreet and not heard.
A stealthy night hunter uses less humanizing weapons
to hold prey than conversation.
Physically, I am too relentlessly cold to be of comfort.
There is more than enough darkness, tragic trajectory,
hellish anecdote, in the human world.
I spin insulated stories for ample companionship,
hidden from the days.
There are days I suppose a desire to walk out
into a burst of hellfire agony, of flaming glory.
A force I would not have believed could so
strongly control from within me denies such action.
I am content to hide.
That is my will, free to accept fate.