Photo: Creative Commons
~
returning to a vaguely familiar place
the smell of time resides in still air
though walls appear unmoved
the irregular space within is much smaller now
~
each room lodged between two times
then and now; chipped layers of paint overlapping
revealing more than memories
within shifting walls
~
cupboards
window panes
floors and doors
all worn as I touch the past
~
my hand over an invisible chair
seeing a lamp not there
hearing the creak just above the living room
illusory substitutes for reality
~
the vent in the floor
intake for dust of the past
keeps its stores in solitude
until the dead of eternal winter
~
I depart again knowing no satisfaction
what was once home is only a shell
of lives no longer there
my once resolute faith now lingers in the intake
~
more than the absence of then is now
the sense of a fleeting touch
of when
and of my somewhere
~
literophanes.com 
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