What the Skin Kept

The box sat in the closet since February.

The right time, I kept telling myself.

Yesterday I opened it

and stopped at the phone—

cracked screen, dead battery,

and in the lower corner of the glass

a thumbprint.

His.

Still there.

I held it to the window.

The light came through around the edges

and not through it.

Whorls intact. Permanent

in the way that felt obscene—

the body's last transaction,

nothing agreed to.

I put the phone back in the box.

Closed the lid.

The right time.