I have been there,
plastic flowers rosy on the sill,
one dead shoe on the decrepit porch,
that mountain of green slag
not the sum of anyone’s life,
not mine or yours.
Years ago vases sailed through these windows.
Here is a cracked banister, the dead
spires of roses. . .

This is the sadness
of history, and I come here
again and again
to feel this way, almost joy,
the moon so beautiful
it must be Chinese.