Left Hardware

He left a length of brass rod on the sill —

the landlord, after the door job.

Cut clean at one end, the other end still

dull where it had lived inside something for years.

I've moved it twice. Put it back.

It sits against the window latch

in a way that looks almost deliberate,

like a tool suggesting the work isn't done.

Afternoons the light finds it.

Brass does that — not warm, not cold,

just present. Insistent.

The way certain objects hold their ground

without asking.

I don't know what it was cut from.

The door works fine.

The rod is not mine and I haven't thrown it out.

That's the whole of it, mostly.

Except for the picking up,

the putting back,

the not deciding.