Two Poems

Remains at 920 Prospect

A friend gone
and I walk his house,
every object alive with absence,
every silent room, his voice.
Old habits persist—
going out, I remember
not to bang the screen door.

Even the porch mums
are out of gas, December's
hollow shine curling
the maple's brittle palms,
translating ripe petal
tongues to tawny mutes.

A day moon follows me,
another face beyond reach,
clouds like piecemeal ghosts
flying from a last dissolution,
hungry for the living's
brief survival.

Reunion at the Dundee Diner

In this half-lit medieval den
of scotch and fish,
what I thought forgotten
unbuds potent and green.
Your face turns the room,
glasses of Dalwhinnie raised,
the waitress wiping away crumbs
from previous diners with a sour rag.
Someone opens the door,
letting in the white strobe of spring.
Outside, melting snow, cars
smashing ice back to what it was.