LISTENER

Across vacant fields
winter replaces the landscape
with a white tablecloth.

I wait for sleep
in a kitchen of dreams.
I piece together
what has disappeared,
listening to my children
turn my life
like the pages of a book.

In my absence certain words
cling to windows
with breaths of icicles,
I erase the letters,
leaving a voice with nothing to say.

My children wake me;
a chance few get
before the wind returns
to claim our shoes.