Such effort to make ruins.
The city has emptied, footstep by footstep.
Grandfathers searching through clothes,
trousers and shoes, emptying cupboards.
The voices have left
and call in another place, anxiously.
They were neither fleeting nor wistful,
they struggled under the ban of the empire.
In my pocket on a torn piece of paper
is a word for goodbye in spidery writing.
I want the voices to find each other.
I want the parts of speech rising towards each other.