Where They Lived
One last time I unlock
the house where they lived
and fought and tried again:
the air of the place,
carpet with its unchanging green,
chair with its back to me.
On the TV set, the Christmas cactus
has bloomed, has spilled its pink flowers
down its scraggly arms
and died, drying into paper.
At the round oak table,
ghosts lean toward one another,
almost a bow, before rising,
before ambling away.
Copyright Credit: Reprinted by permission of Marjorie Saiser, whose most recent book of poems is Lost in Seward unty, Backwaters Press, 2001. Copyright © 2006 by Marjorie Saiser.
Source: 2006