the door flaps aimlessly in the wind
punctuating silences with hard knocks
where once tinkled chimes
and sheets, billowing

it was only one day
the first in a very long stretch
that no one checked the mail
and soon after, no mail arrived
and soon after that
sparrows nested in the tin hollow
strangled by morning glory
and marbled 'neath that wicked moon
on all-saint's eve

bones in the cellar collect straw and dust
where once memories were held in rows
of pearly auburns and burgundy jars
now uniformly gray and shrouded
as sarcophogi

written in the stars
far above the soughing pines
are constellations of hope and the promise of resurrection
held away away in a distant dawn
as if time could be forever

but no it cannot be
she breathes through all the cracks
sifts bones into powdery piles
scurried by rodents

on a knuckled-down three-legged desk
just inside the door
the phone never rings anymore
messages on brittle film
now cracked and yellowed
and lost to eternity

some things can't be reclaimed
across too wide a silence
we are lost and slip away away
in no time
forever