They cross the threshold
of our humming house & we fold our wings, falling
drowsy as geese, nuptial
in the window’s evening flare. Your parents now:
at the couch, settling
the floor, shrugging their ghosts to the steaming tiles.
I could rise, fruit
in boxes mellowing the air behind. I could
be gone, not
sit, speaking, with the ones
you love, at our hearth,
brooding to dreams silent as the balm
of an apple, longevity
alighted, close, a roost, breathing, lying, at hand.