Her house for sale now

real estate sign face down on the lawn

implies more than declares

No one, I think, has checked for days

She has gone from there

I don’t know when

We mind our own business here

in quiet neighbourhoods

No matter we exchanged no words

I honour her now—-trespass sometimes required—-

I honour her now

stand before her house absent of her there behind the drape

I step across her early morning lawn

photograph this birdbath in spring sunlight

imagining she loved it once

enough to place it precisely there

equidistant from window and sidewalk

the private the public

and we smile our smiles

Talk is not needed here

the water has all gone to vapour.