Whoever you were,
you lived in the rooms,
rinsed the cup, dried the plate,

slept & wept & swept
the same three wooden steps.

Each spring, like me,
you watched storms clean
the sheltering trees
of superfluity—

what holds tight
still lives, what lives
stays aloft.

This year I find
an oriole’s intricate nest
in the shaken-down scatter,

blue twine woven
through it for structure,
your hair spun in swirls for a bed.
As, someday, will mine.