The past has been wiped
like puddled milk
from the kitchen counter.

The mug she constantly misplaced,
its coffee grown cold,
has vanished forever.

The oatmeal raisin cookies
in the green glass jar were
long ago devoured.

Only shadows dance under
the branches of the weeping willow
where she and grandad box-stepped.

The apple trees in the orchard
that supplied her sauces and
pies and cobbler

Have withered and wasted,
their small, hard fruit rotting
on the ground.

Now she waits
among strangers, her life a mystery
even to her.

*Revision of Decomposition