revenant

I spent a year intended to be lost.

I was not meant to live here, only to

Set down my clothes upon the ironing board

And fold myself away in six months’ time.

This is no home, no domicile, it’s just

A sleeper car to get from here to there.

Within a year, there will be no trace left

Of all the empty nights I spent gazing

Out the window at the yellow lamplight.

The dust upon the slanted sill remains,

  Buried beneath the new,

But soon it will forget, and I will die.

And when the next gray husk invades the space,

Her tendril hair will snake around the fittings

And they’ll discard her, too, when it is time.