Visiting the Old House at Twilight

Back to the city we fled from and visiting by coincidence,

a decade after flitting,

we feel like burglars in reverse,

trying to steal from the outside four walls

 foreshadowed by the feeling night,

whatever imprint our collective fallen apart

family left behind.

Sadness like ivy wreathes unseen

on the outside, and further in,

the imagined wallpaper of strangers

we let unpeel in reversed triumph.

We allow the home to breathe in

our shadows as we watch outside,

a sensed lament as some strange family

that has displaced us sleeps inside,

where we once lived and deserted.

We wait sentinel, my son and me,

outside for just this night,

as if it was a duty of remembrance,

waiting for the old house to say

it has fogotten us.