From every room hearts spoke through walls too thin to hold
the weight of what they heard
So fires crept through spaces long left soft & blurred

Notes slipped under the doors
frozen to the floor we believed everything
leaves blown beneath the eaves
whirring like a nest of wound-up starlings

We were young
we didn t heed those things
if birds were singing we were loved

We were young
like the universe
like our mothers were
like these words