The Inheritors

From that window the one good eye

on the ruined front

I have watched over the garden of dust

with its draggled fence and the few

wayfarers stopped at

odd hours

There is nothing for them for miles

they have sensed it

the homeless

come to befriend the ruins

stone piled and the women perched all day

their hammers from a distance like locusts

clicking

Days like this when the trees arch

inconsolably

over white crusts

eating their leaves

they arrive in great numbers

in their midst a withered man

and the malformed beckoning like shade

He takes over the house and empties

the well the cupboards

a small dole for each

in remote corridors he arranges

their troubles

When they leave

the taste of scant hoardings

dries in my throat their feet shine

with water on the tumbled stairs

'and I move among them

in the laden air in fallen times

a cloud of white dust

bequeathing