Remains

He cried in pain...

He needed a refrain...

He left the gate swing...

Forgetting when he went in...

8 years of what?

He thinks he once taught...

His hand in hers?

Curtains drawn...a scent of fur?

He can sometimes sense the gaps...

Will often hear taps...

Words never come...silence to tell of life once lived...

He wonders...how much did he have to give?

Flannel pajamas...is he young or old?

Did he tell, or was he told?

A blue truck in the window...

Is that his shadow?

Cold creek water on his feet...where they would meet...

To exist when existence offers only a void...

To see I'm an old man...who might have once been a boy...

A rock bridge in a forest so dark...

Is that Cindy's bark?

I see all of this from afar...

A girl I believe to be my sister crying in the backseat of a car...

Who left before me...who now I see...

The smile that always took my pain...

Which now I leave behind, and a life lived, not in vain...

Is what remains...