Variations on a Theme

As the light coming in

from the dining room windows

dwindles to something

like smoke,

 

and silence envelops the house

in its howls,

muffled screams unstuck

from its throat,

 

the clock on the kitchen wall slips

out of time,

stripped from itself like sight

from the blind

 

or the mind of a man

past his due.

 

I breathe in the smell of dust,

or death, I suppose, 

which are really just one 

and the same,

like cancer or mildew or mold

or rust,

those manners in which

things decay.

 

Those tried and true systems

for ceasing to be,

those lasting illusions of order

perceived,

 

those hackneyed visions

of how one should leave,

are nothing, honestly,

but variations on a theme.