Footsteps

( For David in memory of Lisa )    
      
“Dying is a wild night and a new road.”      
  —Emily Dickinson      
       
You are not alone      
   gestating in that cocoon—        
fat from summer leaves of grief        
       
I have not forgotten        
her footsteps either—        
   mortar to a family of bricks      
solidly weathered into their own        
structure of wedded life        
       
Our 41 year-old friendship      
   in an ultra-conservative city      
excommunicating free thinkers        
       
Only you remain left behind—      
    pulling into the concrete drive      
at sunset, the house unlit      
       
Window panes reflect        
her photographs­—changing weather        
    patterns she loved to snap;        
always the dogwood tree under snow-        
    atmospheric candy-cotton pink;      
or, deep winter blue        
       
A key twists its lock, clicks      
the door open to close—        
       walls and furniture unmoved;        
 everything as it was before you left;      
       
except just one pair of footsteps        
        echoing across the entrance        
~