Leave something behind: a trace of cloud
on a plate, a pair of white birds

shot by a hunter, an emerald brooch
that a shrub snatched from a princess in flight

or the archer's last prayer, spoken minutes before
his brother's arrow found his throat.

Leave us these threads to unravel, embroider:
secret messages inked in white

on white beneath the unsettled weeks
of postcards and air letters

that jam the mailbox while we're away.
Leave us the jigsaw of previous lives.