The Low Ground

The pen rolled away to the dark of the floor,

past the dust and the draft of the bedroom door.

I lay on my belly to reach for the light,

and found what the day had kept out of my sight.

A grocery receipt from a summer long dead,

and a single wool sock near the leg of the bed.

It’s flattened and stiff, like a pelt on the wood,

doing the work that a memory should.