Where It Goes

The clock said 3:20.

I had last checked at 2:15.

I don't know what happened in between.

No tab was opened. Nothing typed.

The document still white,

the cursor blinking in the light

like it had earned the right.

I tried to reconstruct the hour—

the water bill, or whether I'd eaten,

or the particular slow power

of rehearsing a conversation

with someone who has beaten

me to the exit, long ago.

Nothing.

The room was the same room.

The afternoon was doing what it does.

I've been calling this thing thinking

since I was small—this hum, this buzz,

this filling of the skull

with everything and nothing.

But I can't account for it.

The hour left no ash, no route,

just the cursor blinking patient,

not yet out.