Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt

the room was vacant,
not empty, for the chairs and carpet were there,
and the dark shape of the dresser broke into the light,
so there was light, and inside the light a haze,
giving substance, or, at least, form, to the light,
which folded everything else into it,
its moody aspic flowing like glass
creeping down against itself
to accumulate as a thickening
where the pane shrugs itself
into the frame,
finding its way between
the board, cracked and peeling,
and its own swollen lip
heavy with years.

the room gaped and the void entered
bringing with it this restless luggage
of walls blistered by paint,
walls that clash tearing angles from space,
lamps uprooted bearing the sog of mangrove,
the mawkish scent of decay,
into the room,
to drift among spiracles of dust
that have infiltrated the vacancy
hovering over the file case,
the armoire in one corner,
air ducts breathing quietly in baseboards.

only the web anchored to a tuft of curtain,
where a mole-spotted spider works
building a silken carapace for a bug,
moves in the vacancy, sways, asserting
its occupancy to the impalpable air.
I feel myself fading into a tranquil nonexistence,
like this room, this bearer of memories,
which fill it to the brim,

measuring what has been taken
by what remains