Public Lighting

The mirror over the sink is cracked

and the light is a buzzing, sickly green.

I pulled the sweat-stained cotton over my head

and saw the person I’ve become

while the car sits dead on the shoulder of the interstate.

There’s a deep dip where the bone meets the neck,

a hollow that holds a pool of dark.

It looks like a thumbprint pressed into clay,

the mark of someone who was here

and then decided to vanish.

I look like a house that’s been emptied

before the bank could even knock.