After their departure
silence grips the house,
presents a three-dimensional map
of the warrens of emptiness,
and fills them with the pellucid jelly
of necessary desertion.
Life called them away:
school, kindergarten, a job.
Life leaves us here
amid the confetti
that young children exude:
it coats carpets and furniture
as if some elfin wedding
had been celebrated in
another dimension, and
sprinkled the debris gradually
while the children were playing.
The first task is vacuuming
the crumbs, bits of paper,
and it drains the joy, as one
might empty a pool or a room:
all that is left is an echo.
