Rectangles spaced around the wall
each below a hook or nail
they're just darker spots, that's all
where paint has not yet faded pale

Easy to guess what once hung there
works of art within a frame
beauty the artists tried to share
perhaps in quest for fleeting fame

But the paintings all are gone
unfaded shapes are all that's left
on the walls they hung upon
which somehow now seem all bereft

The hangers soon will be removed
another coat of paint applied
in hopes the room will be improved
when all the faint remnants have died

Perhaps a few decades from now
when I'm no longer here at all
somebody will remember how
my traces faded on this wall