The Written Word

Leaving's a little death. Packing,
I see already its wake of signs
and messages, to be witnessed
by another woman who will draw
my long red curtains, take books from
my shelves, sleep in my bed.

Cards left on the window sill
are leaning, a bit drunk, very knowing,
ripe with love and friendship's
intimate knowledges of me
which they won't bother to conceal
or care if they distort, for her.

So it must surely be
with a whole existence's accumulations;
the pronoun that begins our breath,
...