Last Page

Winter again, and all I have is one clean page left
in my writing notebook. The rest were scribbled on,
torn out, crumpled up, and tossed into the trash.

The ghosts who drift around me may grow wistful —
it’s lonely to be forgotten, once the seasons change.
Whatever seemed like wisdom — where is it now?

Old poems blur in memory, mind itself crumples a little
with each successive heartbeat. Soon enough winter
has arrived again, and there’s one page left to fill.

If this were really the last page, if this were really winter,
if all the ghosts stopped in their ghostly tracks, turning
their gaze towards me, what would I have to say?

A boy once sat here dreaming, an old man sits here now.