Chalk

The lamp gutters.
I let it.

There is a shape in the room that used to be yours.
I don't reach for it anymore.
I just know where it sits.

The floorboards remember a weight I've stopped trying to feed.
The way a hand closes around nothing,
then opens,
surprised to be empty.

The radiator ticks its one note.
I've stopped answering.

What I wanted was never a person.
It was the version of me that existed in their looking.
She flickers.
A bad bulb.

The outline stays.
Chalk on a sidewalk after rain.
Faint.
Impossible to scrub.

Some nights I trace it with my finger.
Not to bring it back.
Just to feel the edge of what's gone.

The candle on the sill has been burning for years.
I don't ask how.
I just let it.

--Vera