Under Artificial Light
For a second the shadow watered
a stain on the paper. You gave me these words
so I must’ve nudged them yellow, to ripple
or wrinkle. I slid the paper and watched the stain grow
or shrivel, watched each word I held close almost
soak. Heavier now, your eyes and your fingers.
While I Usually Recycle, Tomorrow’s Trash Day and in 2-6 Weeks These Words May Reach
I can’t write about the dead without writing
you. I can’t write you without writing dust, hole
in the ground, absence. Dust: skin
of your thumb thumbing the paper, your voice
in a glass jar. Hole: white space wanting
the words I won’t write. Absence: this crumple
imagining pressure, your thumb
and your forefinger, not at all dusty, warm.