A weathered house, peeling trim.
Fragments on the floor – something
clear’s been broken. Now this urge
to turn the pieces over, to explain.

Something was hurled from within –
to see past the warping panes?
To wake from a dream of drowning,
desperate to breathe?
                                                Wind flutes
through the crisscrossed frame, raw,
chromatic, keeps them awake when 
they used to sleep. The shards glint 
in moonlight; nowhere to put the feet.

If you ask him – Why did you do it? –
he’ll say almost nothing, a cliché: 
he’s dying too soon, he has to
say yes to whatever is left.