Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Another thousand troubles

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We Leave Houses

We leave houses behind and everything
in them. Nothing follows us. Whatever
is left on the walls is left to them. Keys
on the piano keep their mute threnodies
and nothing can draw them out that is
not given first to what might behold them.

Meanders are lost forever to rugs that
retain no imprint. Why you passed here
and for what matters to nothing and no
one. Doors remain shut or open just
as you left them. What others might
do here cannot matter and never will.

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There on a sill, the dust you disturbed
when you made for the window to see
what or who was doing what and why.
The water you drew for slipping into
or drinking has run down into places
you never dared imagine traveling to.

There porch mats are rendered mosaics
in broken leaves and falling suns leave
fingerprints along unpainted pickets.
Abandoned sofas inter the chitter
of children who once jumped there as
if tomorrow were but a bounce away.

And so we leave houses and everything
behind. Nothing follows that will not
itself leave everything behind. In this
way a future is born, thrashing, flailing,
beset by another thousand troubles that
enter this world from the one you left.

Joseph Gallo
November 20, 2010


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