They’re in a shop that smells like
tattered copies of the Aeneid
and damp earth and day-old tea.
The souvenirs of our tired love
now scattered throughout the store
between bed-sheet feasts for hungry moths
and maps where Aeolus puffs at the seas
sending triremes spinning further
than you are now from me.
Books come apart at their bindings,
peeling away at the seams.
Your letters have fallen through floorboards;
the clock shows a long-ago time,
frozen among the broken treasure
of other people’s lives.
tattered copies of the Aeneid
and damp earth and day-old tea.
The souvenirs of our tired love
now scattered throughout the store
between bed-sheet feasts for hungry moths
and maps where Aeolus puffs at the seas
sending triremes spinning further
than you are now from me.
Books come apart at their bindings,
peeling away at the seams.
Your letters have fallen through floorboards;
the clock shows a long-ago time,
frozen among the broken treasure
of other people’s lives.