Diminishing Returns

I poured a drink and left the room

to do what—check a lock, stand

in the hallway like the hallway

had news for me.

Came back. The ice had shrunk

to a ridge thin as a fingernail clipping,

still holding shape on the granite.

I touched it with one finger.

It didn't resist.

Five seconds and it flattened

into the water it came from,

the glass sweating a ring

I'd wipe up tomorrow.

Eleven p.m. Phone

face-down on the counter, dark.

I'd meant to call someone

for weeks now. Weeks

have this trick where they thin out

and you press them with a finger

and they're gone.