REPORT TO MYSELF the fevers nightly for a week I keep listening for sounds that don't come things vanish and we say that's life life is what doesn't come back when called last year's footsteps will not keep the path open for long untrodden the living plant themselves there when I walk alone I can't feel alone after all these years and deaths how many crowd me everywhere when I talk to myself I never find I address myself I talk in a language of two only one now hears grief makes time and space expand: both emptier I always never see it coming