What I remember
Is mostly dead things. Broken reels of film. Branches
Snapped off from winter air,
The trees around us hunched like old men
Buried under snow, leaning
On their tired feet
With no children to listen
To their stories.
A drowned squirrel in the Spring:
Its whiskers standing out
As it stood erect at the bottom of the pool,
Waiting patiently.
And me, I was dead, too—
Living with my ghosts.
You stood on the other side
Of our glass-walled house
As we listened to them play
In other rooms—
Music drifting in
As from a tin piano,
Playing out our thoughts.