The Remains

About to leave the house,
you looked for the names,

the place, the thread
of a story you wanted to tell.

You could not find them,
and I could not help you. 

I wasn’t with you at the time. 

We walked to our destination,
the remains of our past,

our present between us,
talking, what we both knew,

the winter of our disconnection
unfolding without comment:

the deciduous words
had flown one by one,

and every day since, the evergreen
dropped in snow that fine as silt
covered what tracks we’d made.