The Last Visit

We arrived at the start
of the monsoon, which  
generously swept 
the streets with water.
There was no pleading
with it, no bartering. It came
precisely at a time when we
needed our tight-sealed doors
pried open, when that kind
of gentler prodding made us
feel we could be vulnerable
again. And I saw you 
in a form others had made you
with their cruel intentions and 
deprivations, sitting in a room
with a bare lightbulb, as one
by one your marble endtables 
and good furniture were spirited 
out of your house. Elsewhere
now, free from those years 
of imprisonment, your body 
has turned into a bird-
body: lightboned, but
wingclipped. Since then,
every shadow I see curls
into itself: softening, 
always softening.