Dust on the finish

The sun is a flat heat through the glass.

It cuts through the cheap pulp of page three-hundred,

showing the ghost-type of the index

bleeding through the story's end.

When I crack the spine to the final period,

a moth falls out, flat as a pressed leaf.

It hits my jeans and turns to a smudge,

leaving a gray, powdery wing-print

on the margin where the hero survives.

The steering wheel is hot under my hands.

The car idling is a low, jagged tremor

against my thighs. I don't want to go inside yet.