Who took down the pictures?
Removed the furniture?
Where is the smell of a kitchen,
clothes in the closet?
Books culled to a few volumes?
Not a trace.
Who could know who lived here?
Talked to the walls?
Watched shadows fill in the corners.
Wonder what they were saying.
There’s nothing to tell me.
Things dissolved over the years.
Nothing left to smile or weep over.
In the garden a broken chair
where someone sat and watched.
Destroyed by earth and time.
Scrolls written in the trees,
rain, drought, hard times.
In the end signs of ash and fire.
Not a note as to when or why.
An unlocked house
open to the weather,
still,
waiting for the last storm.