The Same Room Again

I sit on the edge of a bed I don't recall,

after a fight that's still warm in my throat,

and open the drawer, looking for the remote,

finding instead this book, this marked page, this small wall.

The bedspread is the color of hiding.

A paperback with a creased spine,

a receipt marking a line

where someone else stopped reading.

I know this book. Or I've been here before.

The page is marked at exactly the same place.

Someone's unfinished grace,

and I'm standing at the threshold of a door.

The key says the room number.

I don't remember what it is.

The marked page waits in the drawer like this—

a pattern repeating, getting dumber.

The bedspread is brown.

I sit down on the edge again.

The cycle doesn't end,

it just keeps coming back around.