Shade

What is constant now:

memory, the world

as I knew it

like a shade in some

forgotten corner.

The noise of the bar

when I stood

behind your chair

and looked down.

There was one gray hair

you never knew you had,

and the arc of its curve

was a hook inside me.

What is constant now:

The silence without company,

heat and stillness of afternoon,

the nothing going nowhere,

and you, bright ghost,

a voice without a presence

on the line,

in my throat,

in my head.

Libbie Grant, Sep 3, 2020