Must’ve been the wind

As a faceless family friend ran her mouth, 

my wings cast a latent shadow over them all, 

dourly rendered by flameless candlelight 

and held up by the steam of coffee and chocolate 

brewed with the sweetened tears and spiced flatteries 

of long-time witnesses of my presence. 

When they poured out of the door, I followed the current, 

a flight over breathing waves and flannel seafoam. 

I visited every room I’d, at one point, named ‘home,’ 

and there, unbound, I emerged within their corners. 

For a minute, I was the empty seat at dinner, 

the puddle onstage birthed by the melting ceiling,  

the open, gently torn, ungently unread pages,  

someplace a coarse phantom of the television, 

to see, if so briefly, what became of my afterimage.  

But there were no cries. 

And there was no silence.  

It was just another day;  

now three at dinner, 

one less role on a screenplay, 

one less study of the old novel,  

one less channel to tune in to— 

No damage, no wound, no grief, 

like I’d been there then  

only in the way I was now.  

My discarnate wings took me back, 

the flameless candlelight shadow 

now cast on vacant rows, tidied up, 

clean of chocolate spills and crumbs, 

as usual, to welcome the next one 

and their own personal flood of bodies.  

After I closed the lid, I could almost hear, 

I could nearly feel one of them stop, 

slowly turn right around and ask, 

“Something’s missing—what was it?” 

and the other shake their head and say, 

“I don’t know, must’ve been the wind.”