The End of Eloquence

To your surprise, the name conceals
A reference to another name
You knew before you knew the first,

Which makes you reconsider grief.
The name covering the other
Had been, in grieving, eloquent,

But you hadn’t known it was grief
Gifting the eloquence. You’d gone
Searching for further eloquence,

And instead you had uncovered
The hidden name, the source of grief,
Like a burst pipe warming the floor

Before it pushed apart the tiles,
Like the lives boiling underneath
The fallen fruit, so that it moved,

And you were sad, not for the name
The other had been covering,
But for the end of eloquence.