Things persist,
they run, stop,
take up space
but where do they go
when they go away?
Where are the footprints?
The box of broken dishes?
The sound of voices
that lived in a house?
Perhaps the answer
is the someone
calling in the night
for the dead and gone.
They have not left
what is not there,
so what endures?
The last atom of eternity
that turns the light off
when it leaves the room,
without saying goodbye?