(after a postcard from Emily)

Cleaning out his bedroom closet
she worked her way
through his wool suits
to the top shelf 
where she found the shed skin
of some long ago squatter,
a black snake must have once
made its home here
behind a shaky stack 
of  his leather-bound journals

Without looking
at the date on the cover
she pulled one out
and opened to a random page:
All day I watch the nest
under the eaves of the kitchen porch 
where five fledgling swallows
flit about tryng to achieve flight,
though old I feel like one of them
as if they and I are of the same nature
and as if that nature
were nothing but love

She had been here in December
to nurse a cut on his leg 
from a minor fall.  She left
with no plan of return.
He died the first day of spring
in his sleep
alone
and on his own — his way
Age 97

When she finished 
cleaning his house
she couldn’t remember 
how to lock the door