[Gail White]

HUTTE IN SCHWARZWALD, 1945

We've talked about this earlier. Wind, please stop
your whispering. They lived here once, they lived
here once. Poplar leaves remain on the blacktop:
dead and gone -- they were the young, the old
who refused to quit life fully, satisfied
with lesser vestiges: mummified on branches,
or slaving on the ground. They know each room,
the roll-your-owns, the cigar ash that hides

beneath board cracks, the absence of two lives
chalked on the safe room floor. And still,
that perfume of flesh in the fireplace. Come fall,
with mildew mottled, they scan our cabin walls
for entrances. What is that muttering.?
The sky is cold. They shiver. They want in.