Absences (Leaves, not just of grass II)

No-one’s opened the windows for a year

the air hangs heavy with absences
stuck hinges reinforce the atmosphere
the door swings open as though you are here
but the rooms are hunched empty, and the sun winces.

I wipe sills clean, polish the panes and clear

the leaf-drop of a season, the silences
of sparse urban streetlights, a few austere
threads of cobwebs on a chandelier
and then check once more the smoothness of hinges.