The lights are far too bright this year, A neon hum that grates the bone. The table has a hollow chair, A silence where a voice was known. One man is gone, his stories stilled, The other—lost in rooms of mind— A mother with a cup unfilled, Forgetting all she leaves behind. And then the phone that doesn't ring, The son who chose a different shore. The sharpest salt the season brings Is waiting by an open door. To feel it all would be to drown, To let the tidal wave break throu