Shadowless Life

Here is where I exist,
a place I can still own…for the moment.

My sweat still resides in mortar.
My blistered flesh remains ingrained with hewn wood.

Dust knows not my movement,
nor does window reflect my image.

I watch the moonlight still sneaking through
every seam, crack and knot hole,
disturbing rusty nails cowering,
as if discovery might mean expulsion.

I pass the vase of cat-eye marbles,
always holding a flower erect,
now only a dried stem and dead petals.

My finger touches the blackened ring like an old wound,
the remains of a romantic night’s candle melt down,
a night stand stain worth remembering.

Outside…

The fence was only half done
when the radioactive cloud descended,
halting its finish.

The pale ripples of a hound dog tied to the apple tree stump
is but a part of my menagerie of shadowless friends.

As robots survey the remains,
time is running out for this home to pale shadows.

How lonely will it be?

Me, my fellow ghosts,
the dog, the ever faithful owl,
my feathered reminder of what wise is,
and what the unwise have done to us.