The building falls through plumes 
of grit, floor after floor
set free, a hollow column
sifting, and then only wind

fills the space still framed: not a trick
of the eye but the lagging mind,
as a cushion will sag
remembering missing weight.

Like water snagged at a river’s bend,
pools of absence collect and disperse,
currents eddy and tug,
fill and empty the world of form.

We cannot stay in the life we knew.
Cannot pull two breaths
through the same pink lungs.
Each morning we wake

with someone new. To gather
then release, to divest as perfectly
as we pack: what would it mean
to slough each moment like translucent skin

and slip into bright unburdened air?
To hear without fear the cracking
deep in dark ice, to surrender
to the rush of the shattering thaw.