Objects Left Behind

Objects left behind are strange – as if
they’d lost their skeletons and had no gravity –
inwardly they flop about like airy ragdolls
full of brainless purposelessness – vaguely
scented by what once sustained them:

memories and yearnings strong enough
to form a presence: full of ardent longing:
strong enough to stand them up and give
them balance and a place: now all replaced
by almost empty space. Oh, they have

shapes – silver baby brush, a moustache
cup, a little flannel monkey puppet give
their ghostly nods to their forgotten
goddesses and gods: those now dead
perpetrators of their fates: their “owners”

whose demise erased their slates:
and here they are: blank legacies and soft
ridiculous abatements: artifacts of lives
once lived, now riven utterly, ground down
to waste. Still – they have a kind of grace.

.