Small Yields

The drawer gave up with a wooden shriek.

The press hit my big toe, heavy and cold,

a four-pound reminder that you took

the paring knives and the cast iron skillet.

You left the things that require effort.

I hold the handles, squeezing the air,

looking at the grid where a scrap

of 2019 still clings like a scab.

It’s a papery ghost of a dinner we had

before the quiet became a third roommate.

I put it back in the dark,

limping a little on the way to the sink.