Residual Hair

The elevator is groaning between two and three,

and for a second, I’m where I used to be.

A bark from the hallway, a muffled, low rasp,

like a memory I’m trying too hard to grasp.

I looked down at my sleeve, at the wool of my coat,

and found a white hair, a tiny, sharp note.

He’s been gone for a decade, the house is all new,

but the hair is still here, and the dent is there too.

In the kitchen linoleum, where the heavy bowl sat,

the floor stayed compressed, permanent and flat.