Watercolors Under the Rain

(Thanks to Erin, who saw this first, whose work brought me around to writing it.)

To these things
I am not bound--
this wall, this
chair that coughs
out stuffing upon
the carpet, this
kitchen stove
down to a single
burner, this
faded photograph
inside the frame.

To these things
I am not bound--
this shrunken
body too small
to fill the fragile
skin, these trembling
fingers upon the
coffee cup, the
eyes dimmed and
ears gone deaf
in the silence
of slow retreat.

I have gone and I
yet remain, I have
my imagined futures
and treasured past.

I have enough, and
as I walk to the
dusty window, I do
not care what day it is,
or if it is numbered,
or what books say--

There are things I have
known, kind faces turned
now to watercolors under
the rain, but still
far greater than icons
one kneels to or turns
under nervous fingers.

I am already mostly gone,
all important cargo stowed
in holds too deep to ever
be stripped bare.

I am already mostly gone,
and nothing that befalls
my remainder is of any
great consequence.