Lights are burning In quiet rooms Where lives go on Resembling ours. The quiet lives That follow us— These lives we lead But do not own— Stand in the rain So quietly When we are gone, So quietly . . . And the last bus Comes letting dark Umbrellas out— Black flowers, black flowers. And lives go on. And lives go on Like sudden lights At street corners Or like the lights In quiet rooms Left on for hours, Burning, burning. Submitted by C.K.