Only Us. Poem by Terry Collett

There's only us here now,
you amongst the dead
and me amongst the living
(at least for now) , and
the moon above us creamy
and smooth as a politician's tongue,
and they are not here, not yet,
and dogs bark afar off, and cats
sit on walls looking for prey
or mates or meditating on
the moon's glow.

There's only us here lying
abed listening to the night
hours pass away, the tick ticking
of the old clock on the bedside
cabinet, the smell of bodies
washed, of a well-polished room,
of a descending doom.

There's only us, only the stars
flicking like diamonds in moonlight,
only the echoes of memories,
the visions of what may have been
but were not, of you and I once
young but now old or dead or waiting
to be dead, only the soft breathing
on the air, and you now dead
ascending the stair.