Accommodation

Accommodation

We grow accustomed to absence, the empty
spaces left by friends misplaced decades ago,
their numbers disconnected, addresses lost.

Even on our best days, the faces of old lovers
fall away, along with the reasons we loved them,
their voices, their favorite songs, their last names.

Our skin dries, leached of oils. Our bodies,
impatient to mingle with the air, give up
their molecules, dust motes in slanted light.

Wind plays our hollow bones. It is late in the year.
Yet one day follows another. A brawl of crows rising
against the pallid sky still takes our breath away.