What Leather Remembers

I opened it without asking permission,

the way you do when someone is dead

and the asking is no longer possible.

The wallet was flat from years in a box,

the brown leather faded to nothing,

still holding the shape of his hand.

A union card from 1987.

A photo of a woman in front of a house

that doesn't exist anymore. I don't know

if she kept her own wallet or if he

ever asked. I don't know what she meant

to him beyond the fact that he carried her

pressed against his hip.

The card slots held their shapes.

The leather creased in specific places—

his thumb always finding the same pocket,

his fingers remembering the way

a body remembers a route

it takes every day.

I thought there would be more.

A lottery ticket. A note.

Something that proved he wanted

more than what he had.

But there was just the shape.

The evidence of repetition.

The faint outline of a life

small enough to fit in a hand.

I put the card back where it was.

Closed the wallet like closing a door

on something you shouldn't have seen.

The leather still holds the space

where his thumb used to press.

The absence is more real

than anything that was there.