Scraps of her conversation
drift near the ceiling
of the rooms of my house:
torn-away phrases
buoyant now she has left
rest briefly at the top of the walls
like moths
then bob free.
The bits of speech are lonely
separated from her
from each other. Even when they lived
in her mouth
these words were orphans, had no siblings
were raised in institutions
or by strangers. Theirs is the solitude
of a flag abandoned on a windless lifeless
moon, the pennant displayed
by means of a wire frame, surrounded
by a powdered grey surface
reaching for horizons of frozen stone.
The discarded sounds
stay aloft in my rooms’ upper corners.
Outside it was winter overnight.
It will be winter
this afternoon. It will be winter
all evening.