We began the demolition
with details–
who to take the blender,
the coffee maker,
the blame–
understanding we would leave no trace.
Other lives waited
to bring noise to the walls,
freshly stripped  of
artifact and effect.

We packed and claimed possessions,
years revisited in dust;
pulled up mile markers of Ours,
placed them into cartons of
Mine and Yours.

We lumbered up and down the stairs
as they creaked their approval.
Boxes, jeerful and swollen,
took their place as patient passengers.

We shed the flower of a common life
left to drought
leaving behind only

the sigh of any empty house,
the lingering exhaust
of diesel fumes.