The Unfilled Space

The bus rattled, old man's hand

found his wife's knee,

a quiet knowing there,

a soft, settled thing.

Like moss on a stone, something grown.

Later, the cheap couch fabric,

a scratchy weave of brown and orange,

dust motes swimming in the lamplight

where you'd pulled your body

away.

An inch, then two,

a canyon grew.

The pattern of the cushions

undisturbed, precise,

as if no one had ever sat there.

Just the faint smell of your cologne,

and the weight of all that empty air.