Pitted

I’m pulling the plastic heads of the pins

out of the wall, one by one.

A fine rain of tan dust

hits the carpet, the dry rot of three years

spent trying to pin down a life.

Under a yellowed dry cleaner’s slip

for a coat I don’t even wear anymore,

there is a photo of the terrier.

The one you took in the divorce.

The board is a landscape of craters now,

so many holes the surface is soft

as a sponge. I can’t hide the damage.

Even if I take the board down,

the drywall behind it is scarred

by the things I thought I needed to see every day.