He might have been standing 
By the fireplace, listening to us 
When we entered. But as soon 
As his attention was felt, 
The space by a wall or latch 
Of a cabinet door was thinned 
To a desolation of ordinary 

Dimension. That, like his shirts 
And shoes for a matter of months, 
Was all any of us could keep.
We were unspeeched 
As we floated past the bare, 
Given floor where he was found 
In a small front room. The door 

Opens on it. Not wanting to stare, 
I let my sight tumble over it. 
And not wanting to leave, 
Turned back for anything else—
A drape that blouses in a window, 
The only available consolation. 
But windows had been stripped.  

Mere signs of people reached us 
In the otherwise vacated world.
At that time, a highway streamed 
With cars no one drove.  
Houses on his street, yellowed 
Grass by a walk, gravel front yards, 
Were just as abandoned as his.

He may have waited by the kitchen, 
But irreparably, like our grief, 
He quit room after room, a fleck 
Of eye-caught light, a fleck of teeth 
Then nothing, a blot of shoulder, 
His body all we wanted to touch, 
To see clothed and here again.

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