The Last Light On

At first,
the rooms simply grow larger.
A chair goes unused.
Fewer shoes gather by the door.

Then one day
you notice the house
has been learning
how to live without them.

The children leave
in the ordinary way children do.
One room empties,
then another.

Their time fills
with lives of their own.
You learn when not to call.
You learn which holidays are yours.

Their lives close gently
around others.
You are still their mother,
but no longer their home.

Then your parents
become photographs.
You reach for the phone
and remember
there is nowhere to call.

Even the animals go;
those small, faithful hearts
who asked so little of the world
except to be near you.

You bury them, too.
And somewhere in the quiet
you understand:
no one is coming.

Not for rescue.
Not for completion.
Someone who would know
how you take your coffee,
or which silence means stay,

who would turn toward you in the dark
and say your name
like something unearthed
that had forgotten the light.

There are griefs
with no date to mark them.
Only the space you kept
inside you remains,

slowly taking its place
among the furniture.
Years later,
everything is still there:

her cup,
your chair,
the other side of that bed
still smooth.

At night
you walk through the house,
turning off the lights
one by one,

until you are standing
beneath the last one
in the house
that once held everyone.

And you understand:
you are not waiting anymore.
Because you are the only one
who stayed.