What routine nights. The house in steady dark,
we pile the dishes, lay tomorrow’s shirts.
Wine is uncorked and left to sit. We talk
in hushed tones, as though shy in a public place,
a waiting room, or deck of a moving ship.
Before, all this would wait, until we met
in his room, by his bed – and we would sing
not loud or well, but tuned enough for him
to fall asleep, assured that he was loved.
Life’s small and sung-out height. We have slipped past
the heyday of its church. Its windows broken,
the tiny silent grief of those old stars
in its holed roof. Its organ at the back
that might still play or break if it were touched.