Afterglow Parapets

The room

keeps

a shape

where the table stood Dust learning the names of what left A

cup ring on the counter,

pale as the moon Tape on the window where the glass had

cracked I count the marks that no one meant to keep And

find a map in what could not come back Not grief exactly,

not a lesson yet Just weight in the air where a question

sat

Every ending leaves a seam

Threaded through the ceiling beams I touch the place and understand Some

things stay by losing form

What remains is not the thing But the bend it left in

me A door still warm from someone's hand A note that stops

before it lands I carry less than I can name Still it

changes how I breathe

The hallway learned a quieter length Pictures left clean squares on the

paint I pass them like small weather reports Proof that presence has

a grain

There is no speech for certain gaps Only hands that close then

open

If absence has a body It is smaller than the word It

folds inside the pocket With a ticket never used I do not

need to solve it I only learn its weight

What remains is not the thing But the bend it left in

me A door still warm from someone's hand A note that stops

before it lands I carry less than I can name Still it

changes how I breathe

Something stays, even unnamed