The soft morning rain wore gloves
when it came this time of day –
soft-footed, deliberate,
pressing its palms
against the sun-bleached windowbones,
as if asking permission to enter.
Something peeled the stuttering silence
like bark from a young oak.
I turned the lamp away,
flame flickering,
and let the dust breathe in peace.
The house has no corners anymore.
They’ve rounded themselves
in sleep-surrender,
folded inward
like past regret
stuffed in an old, dusty coat pocket.
They arrived separately –
on different lonely days.
Love came first, trailing thread-lace
and golden strands,
with the smell of stormfruit.
Then Death, later,
with his cold winterglass eyes
and unpunctuated, grasping hands
playing life's final melody on
this old worn out piano.
Funny—neither knocked.
They let the creaking floorboards answer,
split wood speaking
in broken syllables.
Now the worn walls echo backwards.
In the poorly painted hallway –
once rich –
a chandelier sings in lowercase.
Its light barely lifts the carpet,
but moths still come,
dressed for a funeral
that keeps changing addresses.
Love moved the furniture
without touching it.
Chairs gathered in whisper-circles.
The grandfather clock ticks,
its pendulum sways to time’s hand.
Books opened their pulse-spines
and breathed ink-dust into the air.
Death lit a match –
that sulphur-laminate scent
thickening the air –
and braided it into the sugar.
I found the flame burning softly,
hiding in the kettle –
like a secret no one dared stir.
The old ash-jar on the mantle cracked.
A mint-threaded hush rose from it,
hovered a moment,
then settled again,
as if remembering who it belonged to,
before quickly forgetting.
The staircase sighed
like an old tenant remembering rent.
The clouded sky leaned west.
My books slid north toward the windows,
as if pulled by history’s mouth.
Outside, the root-chair is still there –
grown into the fig tree’s spine.
Every morning,
I place a love’s breath on its seat.
It never moves.
Still waiting
for the right weight of a memory.
I keep the forgotten clocks in the drawer.
Their ticklanguage doesn’t match
the breath of the house.
Now I mark hours
by how long it takes
the fly on wallpaper
to hum itself quiet.
The blackened mirrors have forgotten their task.
No light.
No faces.
No questions.
They reflect only the ghostshadow
of who almost stayed.
And still, each night,
the attic exhales fabric-murmurs.
Not footsteps.
Not whispers.
Just the sound of someone
remembering how to stay.
Love wrote something in the evening fog
left on the windowpanes.
Death leaned in
and breathed it away
before it spelled a name.
Now the silence has a shape –
a name.
Now the door locks
from both sides.
And this house?
It doesn’t sleep.
It waits.
It swells with each absence,
ripens with every glance
that doesn’t land.
Love and Death live here.
Not as enemies,
not as lovers –
but as roommates,
who share a silence
too sacred to name.
Still holy.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
Love and Death Live Here
This poem, along with others I’ve recently shared, comes from a book I’m currently writing:
Quiet Pools and Other Witnesses
If this piece resonated with you, I invite you to explore the other poems in the collection—and I welcome your thoughts, reflections, and comments.
