Our First Home Has Forgotten Us

All our dinner smells have long since mixed with the wind.
Our voices echoed down these halls receding 
by halves with every reverb 
till even now, if our ears were small enough, 
we might hear them tumble back to us 
softer than dandelion fur. 

This place is the sum of our forgottens. 
But the windows don’t wink to see us back. 
These trees are no longer our parents; the ground no more our bed.
Firsts and lasts were leaves burned the hour we left. 

The Earth and all its cousins 
fall slowly through the dark 
toward some center, 
revisiting nothing. 

How can we not wonder if our old dreams don’t drip into theirs?
A girl weeping for a doll she didn’t own. 
A mother finds mirrors full of old faces. 
A father, watching his kids in the backyard, 
calls the wrong name, even your name, 
and hears the house creak like a sigh.