Late Letters

The letter slipped from the coat like a sigh,

a folded quiet I hadn’t known to ask for.

Ink cracked beneath the weight of time,

a shaky confession in faded blue.

It smelled like mothballs and yesterday’s regrets,

like the empty chair at Sunday lunch,

forgotten but not gone.

I held it like a ghost—

the one you never see coming,

the grief that walks in months too late,

to fill a silence I thought was full.