I’m crying for
The old Victorian house and bones tapping
Forlornly on glass
And the old white ice-skates we found in the closet that day
And the cherry tree that never
Bloomed
And the sky that was always grey
For
Your pictures on the wall
Of us and our friends and the little girl
None of us knew but she looked so alone
And for
The hotel room we slept in once
After all these years it’s the only place I’ve ever called
Home
And the smoky room in the basement of the bar
Where they used to play jazz

We arrived fifty years late
And sat on cable spools and crates
But the music never started despite the grimy cubist painting on the wall
Which clearly embodied all that was us
But if there had been a musician
His whole life would have been a Blue Period

And when we couldn’t stand to walk the yellow cobblestones
Where our heroes had once walked
Before they died of one thing or another
We wandered the forest
Fearing your grandmother’s voice saying
Child, look but don’t touch

Because that was us
Writing in the margins of the books of the dead
Who understood us
Wandering the formal corridors
Of your ancestors
Wondering where mine were
And why you didn’t have any sort of family
Resemblance

Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn’t have been happier
In the age of the atom bomb