Something of Yours

I kept some things of yours to remember,

even though I would not forget:

notebooks with no good passwords 

and reminders that are well past importance.

I kept some of the books, the shirts and watch.

But time takes its toll on treasured things,

clocks lose tongues, become silent.

Photos grow dim, colours dissipate,

the snapshot of you in the garden

could be anyone fifty years later.

Even the scrawled name on the back

has faded to near nothing.

Other people live in the houses where we lived.

The neighbourhood has people who speak nearly as we did,

but not the same, not quite, for even the accent shifts,

the dialect betrays over days, months, years, shedding words.

How they speak is not how we were (language makes us),

the incremental tide erodes away identity.

Last time I was there I saw some like you,

the same build, shape of the face,

who would not disgrace in an identity parade.

But never your gait, the glance, the way you 

held yourself and navigated the streets.

Long spears of time are against us

(let us not pretend).

But I'm glad to be gone from there;

better imagining the place peopled

by flesh-and-blood ghosts

than the pale strangers who remain.