It brightens as the sun
Comes up, uncomplaining, again,
Into the same sky it forsook last night.
My eyes are the same, too.
Blood has dried on my sheets, leaving a mark. My tears have dried, leaving none.

And the sky will build up clouds to hide the sun,
I know. And the Earth will turn,
Cry though I will
For the light; for loss; for the callousness of returning without remembering.
It will return, but it will not remember.

Geoffrey Wessel is an American diplomat and amateur philosopher who enjoys thunderstorms and once translated the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights into 720 lines of iambic pentameter. He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill and the London School of Economics. He lives with his spouse in Washington, DC.