You can still walk in the rooms.
Among detritus of lives.
Mattress springs that wouldn't burn
time stopped on the charred hands of a wall clock
a picture frame seared into scarred stone.
Who lived here,
among the purple thistles like handfuls of blood?
There are no clues. Already
squatters' urine stinks. There's
lurid graffiti. Blackened clinkers
in the fire grate.
All 1 can find original
are two closely woven initials
carved high in a kitchen beam.
Indecipherable letters. From unknown lives.
and 1 remember the mud banks stank,
sunning themselves.
A heavy marble cross was laid at your head
And silence, in which to visit.
1 made a pact, and old customs
are immutable.
The deep chisel marks that cut
have softened now,
dates look less final
and the full stop after your name has not endured.
She might even smile at my yellow posy,
If she saw.