Stray cats

Where we are going is not clear,
and one cannot stress enough
the inevitability of detours,
further,
the impossibility of a road.

The crows know better,
though also having overstayed their welcome,
they remain perched on a lonely oak,
divinely indifferent to the wind
that stings our fingers.

There are vacant rooms and boarded windows
to whisper everything that we lost,
and a eulogy no one could bring themselves to compose,
because the others stroll by, absorbed in the day,
like so many stray cats.
We have joined their ranks,
and now wander the streets
without plans or appointments.

The red bricks are unmoved,
and their coarse faces taunt the numbing air.
They teach us to view things
from the heights,
to endure without complaint.
And if victory is gritty defiance,
good times in the absence of friends
who no longer call or respond,
then let us offer a raucous toast
to fortunes we cannot tell,
and memories we cannot erase.