Back to the Land
When someone leaves, their voice lingers in the ordinary, in memory, in residue, in the smallest corners, until the earth quietly takes them back again.
I keep finding your voice
caught in the teeth of the radiator
as if the heat knows you by name.
The curtains sway
like they’ve been drinking all night
and can no longer keep secrets.
I fold my hands the way someone
might hold a map in the dark,
waiting for a country
that doesn’t know they exists.
Outside, rain moves through the air,
dragging a wet light
across the face of every building,
like it is blessing or punishing something
I can’t see.