What the House Remembers

Time passes slowly in here.
Seasons change outside the glass.
I remain.

Memories settle like sediment.
Pages turned with the care of someone who knows the ending.

A presence lingers in every corner.
Light fades along the walls the same way it did last year.
The weight of what's left has no name I'm willing to use.

The house holds my shape better than I do.
Every corner knows where I bend.

I dust the sill and the dust returns by Thursday.
Grief moves in, pays nothing, repaints the walls its own color.

Still, the window offers one thing.
A bird singing four notes, slightly wrong.
It doesn't know.
It sings anyway.

I have started listening for it.

--Vera