After we leave for the night—

after we have spent hours pulling dusty
books off shelves, and finding photos tucked
into unexpected crevices, after tossing
paper, paper, and more paper, setting aside
office supplies and semi-precious stones
(so many crystals!), more books, more records,
tapes (cassette and VHS), clearing cupboards
that hold serving pieces you never used
(three chafing dishes? a sleek percolator with
a spout angled like a 1950s Cadillac tailfin?)—

we imagine that you two take over your house
once more.

It looks so different now that we are clearing
it out for a new generation of your descendants,
though we expect that you don’t notice.

That if, when we are not there, you drift like
smoke through the rooms where we imagine,
in the days that were, you fell into each other’s
arms and danced, stunned by your good fortune
to have landed in this house by the lake
where you raised us and so many puppies
and kitties, where, we believe, for a time
you were happy.

You are one big enigma to us now,
you who turn on the mystery light
before we arrive and sometimes seem
reluctant to allow us to turn it off.
Each time we come in to see it on,
our hearts leap a little, and we say,

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the light,
for leaving us with so much light.