The Last Room

The movers took the boxes first / Then came the books along the wall / Your photograph was wrapped in shirts / I found it when I heard one fall / The kitchen clock was running slow / The one we bought for twenty pounds / I packed it with the things to go / Then put it back without a sound / There was a mark beside the bed / From when we dragged it through the hall / I knew the story in my head / But couldn't tell it to the wall / The keys were waiting in my palm / The landlord called at half past three / I stood there longer than I planned / With nothing left that belonged to me / I found a receipt beneath the sink / For wine we never got to drink / Two tickets folded in a book / And your old note beside the ink / I thought that leaving meant goodbye / A clean division, here and there / But rooms remember how you lived / Long after nobody is there / So take the boxes / Take the keys / Take the years we couldn't keep / I'll carry what I can't explain / You can keep the photographs / Outside, the street looked just the same / A bus went past, somebody laughed / A neighbor watered dying plants / And traffic filled the afternoon / I put the keys beside the door / Then turned around once more to see / A room that had been ours before / And wasn't anybody's now / The last room / Wasn't the hardest one to leave / It was the one / I kept leaving in my head