Vacant Possession

     Ian Parks            

We chanced upon it walking

with a friend: gothic window,

ornamental arch, a sense of time

releasing all the dreams

that went before. Those other lives

were limited like ours.

It lasted for a moment

but the moment was enough.

In the time it took to clear

the misted pane, or stroke

white cobwebs back from the front door

I'd fixed us there forever.

We knew the place was haunted

but the ghosts were ghosts of lovers

and you didn't seem to care.

Lost chances? Yes. The house

exists without us at the end

of that long drive - an error

in the mind, a gap in the air.

Yet don't you wake up dreaming

of an unfamiliar room?

And don't you glimpse it clearly

on a freezing night like this?

The light slants at a different

angle now; and still I see

you peering through the glass,

refurnishing those empty rooms

with objects from our past:

a bottle streaked with candle-wax,

letters, bookmarks, random things;

the dust-sheets rearing

like an avalanche; your lips

on my lips searching for a kiss. 

©2006 Ian Parks.  Reproduced with permission of the author.