In our garage, your hockey skates still dangle.
Green and yellow parakeets still call
From your painting on my office wall,
Bright birds slowly dimming on a tangle
Of brown, twigless branches. A singing bowl,
A book of Dylan’s lyrics, a leather journal
Whose stiffening leaves I turn to read each kernel
Of tunes (the jigsaw pieces of your soul),
The Warwick bass you paid for by yourself,
Three joints you rolled that I will never smoke,
A New Year’s gift you gave me as a joke,
And you—now dust and ash—rest on my shelf.
Watercolors fade. Ashes scatter,
But love remains—firm, unchanging matter.