The dead keep careful records of our days;
they tally breaths in ledgers made of dust.
At night we hear them turning brittle pages.
They note the rooms where laughter used to blaze,
the chair left warm by someone we could trust.
The dead keep careful records of our days.
They file the footsteps lost in drifting haze,
each broken oath, each kindness and each lust.
At night we hear them turning brittle pages.
No wall can seal the quiet where it stays,
no lock persuades their patient, paper trust.
The dead keep careful records of our days.
They write in margins no one living weighs,
in alphabets of mildew, ash, and rust.
At night we hear them turning brittle pages.
And when our names appear beneath their gaze,
our borrowed breath returns to common dust.
The dead keep careful records of our days;
at night we hear them turning brittle pages.