Paper corpses in sagging plastic mausoleums,
The vital salts of their words leeched out,
Through roots of dust and cold.

Oublietted clothes, forlorn now, past redemption.
Sucked dry of color and sheen by
Forgetfulness and veiny sunlight.

That one window shows nothing but brown clouds,
In its fixed, cataracted stare.
It has hinges, but no motivation.

Bare walls glisten with just the promise of damp.
But it smells of weeping brick,
And infirmed cardboard boxes that'll never walk again.

Even the spiders seem to have vacated at last.
A decade's story of their grim work,
Expands like a crumbling dessicated lake-bed.

This rug died of moth-cancer long ago,
There are thread-bare spaces in its skin
Where the tumors dried and blew away.

Objects without names of their own gather near the eaves,
Seeping out into the night through tile-gaps,
Along with the memory of their purpose.

And this chair – lord knows how it got up here,
Upholstery savaged by indifferent time,
The claw marks reach almost to its throat.

In this dim, vaulted borderland above the world;
Day and night held in exile;
Time feels its bonds loosen.

The stars whirl and chime in perfect unison,
The earth breathes far below,
And I am nothingness.