The phone was charging in the other room

The phone was charging in the other room.

I needed milk, and onions, and I found

an envelope from something that came in the mail last month—

a bill or a notice, the important kind I drowned

in the pile by the door—and I flipped it over,

uncapped a pen, and started writing down

the list.

The pen skipped on the crease. I pressed.

The ink bled out a little, dark and wide,

and I wrote bread, then crossed it out, wrote bread (real),

which made me feel something I couldn't decide

was funny or embarrassing.

I looked at my hand.

Just looked at it.

The way it held the pen

was a thing I didn't teach it.

The slight lean left, the heel resting

on the paper like it had rights there.

Everything else I do

goes through a screen.

Every list, every note, every thing

I need to remember or to mean.

But this.

This one thing.

The pen, the crease, the ink that bled a little

into the fibers of the paper—

the envelope still sitting on the counter,

onions circled twice because I always forget,

bread (real) written in the hand

I've had since I was seven,

which is the only hand I've got.