spare keys

mistimed the visit to friends
spent more hours
alone in their empty spaces
than i did with them.
drinking from their cups,
crying into their piano,
lying awake in their sheets.
opening and closing their fridge,
spitting in their sinks.
learning who they've become
in my accidental absence
from objects and photographs,
any quiet evidence of habit.
we sit together
at their kitchen table now,
reveling in our shared rear view,
that kindly cracked mirror of memory,
forever fingering the bruise. 
we hang tiny lights on
the branches of a private dying tree,
sing songs out of season
until we're drunk
soft with remembering.