You are still here, still here, still:
the door left open,
the taupe walls,
the desolate pantry,
the ancient spinach in the freezer.
You are a bag of succulent soil
but you are not the tender turgid vines.
You are undead zinnias,
waxily guarding the rice cooker.
I was the December draft—
you were the baseboard purring.
I was the calcified stain—
you were its soapy blurring.
I am a flicked cigarette butt
fluttering from the upstairs window
like a samara seeking arable cement in the parking lot.
You are fading red
fibers of patterned polyester
still drinking dust from the air.
You were the sunlight
that rattled through our open
windows, thawing our marrow.
And as I reflect, I hope
your beams embedded down, down
to somewhere warmer now.