When did your silence first ...

When did your silence

first distrust my words?
first circle my words with grave disdain?
first puncture my words to show their bloated emptiness?

When did my words

first dim their power to suit your silence?
first lose their full-throated voice?
first slink away guiltily from your silence?
first feign feebleness even when fully charged?

No matter how much I polish my words
or spruce them up,
they will never have pedigree,
or be good enough for the durbar of your august silence.

So don’t ask me when my words
became what they are now.
Pointless this overload of questions,
this tilting stack of memories.