Closest to the Sky

for Casey

I still feel like I’m trespassing

when I climb the attic stairs to your old room,

in all the house the place closest to the sky.

Signs of your former occupation:

mostly software — inessential shirts and socks —

and silver discs with whole worlds

collapsed into them,

worlds you conquered and tired of.

You left a tin of pennies on your dresser;

a guitar pick on the floor,

a blue triangle with softened points

and, if I had the dust and brushes,

your fingerprints.

These days your bed is never disturbed.

Here you lay for many weeks

healing after the accident. Perhaps that’s why

both you and I avoid this place now.

Out the window an ancient spruce so near,

little more than arm’s length: I can see every needle,

dull in the winter, sober green-gray,

a peaceful color

that never tries to cheer us falsely.

You used to complain about the crows

that woke you at daybreak

when they landed on the roof, a whole flock

shuffling overhead, cawing hard, calling for you.

Often I heard you swear at them out the window.

Now you’re gone, but the crows only know

that no one here is angry anymore.