I'D burn these last three candles but the gas
has been shut off
(the stove is fireless, an image of itself)
and the lighter has been packed
and the matches, like all our ephemera, have been
PITCHED
because there is nothing important about a match
until you need one.
SO once everything has been removed
(more or less)
it becomes evident that the dust has owned the place
all along; and unassumingly but clearly
would not mind at all if we just disappeared.
So we will. We didn't know it but the dust
drove us away.
We thought our lives moved of their own accord
and when we had to, we swept.
Which is probably what did us in, come to think of it.
SO, uh, everyone is gone. Since i've been here,
these are the people that have lived here:
Ginny and Travis and Layard and Laurel and,
and Dan and Erik and Sarah and Amanda and Kelly.
Now it's just me, the walls, the floors, the open doors,
The dust.
If i forget and start to sing, the rooms remind me and echo
and shut me up. Sitting on the floor. Imagining sounds.
THE last night: bare. empty. crickets, and aching arms, and sweat.
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