This past summer
after you made a different life
in Berkeley
I visited the old room
we made a home—
the way a ghost might visit
its shadow
& the room is
now repainted the color of
rust &
rotting enamel &
a boneyard of bricks
the view
out your window—
is
like the map I drew
my fingers across
& discovered
nothing. I wonder if
the dust
here is still
made of us,
a memory
& we still exist
somehow—& not
as a field of knives
buried & not
given a name, perhaps
silica
something that cuts off
calluses from
our dead
bolted palms—
& fills our lungs with
uncracked
windows