First Loss, Final Silence
by Alexander Scott Pearce Baker
What was this veil that time withdrew?
Life’s claws revealed beneath the skin,
A mask once bright, now torn askew,
Where shadows stir and shape within.
The first rebuff—a whispered chill,
Soft laughter lost beyond the door,
A heart that faltered, cold and still,
And found the world less than before.
Then came the silence sharp and deep,
When one beloved slipped away,
A hollow left no voice could keep,
A shadow stole the sun from day.
The grave, a secret held too close,
Unseen but felt like winter’s breath,
A specter none could dare oppose,
That wove the fabric fine as death.
And with that weight the soul unspooled,
Existence cracked, its edges blurred,
A vastness cold, impersonal, ruled,
By silent voids without a word.
No tether strong enough to bind,
No light to hold against the gloom,
But still the ghost aroused would find
Its place within the empty room.
Life’s claws revealed beneath the skin,
A mask once bright, now torn askew,
Where shadows stir and shape within.
The first rebuff—a whispered chill,
Soft laughter lost beyond the door,
A heart that faltered, cold and still,
And found the world less than before.
Then came the silence sharp and deep,
When one beloved slipped away,
A hollow left no voice could keep,
A shadow stole the sun from day.
The grave, a secret held too close,
Unseen but felt like winter’s breath,
A specter none could dare oppose,
That wove the fabric fine as death.
And with that weight the soul unspooled,
Existence cracked, its edges blurred,
A vastness cold, impersonal, ruled,
By silent voids without a word.
No tether strong enough to bind,
No light to hold against the gloom,
But still the ghost aroused would find
Its place within the empty room.
Alexander “Al” Scott Pearce Baker is a Halifax-based naturalist, writer, and painter with a master’s in philosophy. His fiction appears in Dark Harbor and Flash Phantoms, poetry in The Lucky Lizard and Marrow Magazine, and academic work with publishers including Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Bloomsbury. Research interests include cryptids, ancient philosophy, sexuality, bioethics, humour theory, and the occult.