The Circled Number

I found it in their closet,

1998 pressed into the spine,

yellow pages falling out like old skin,

the dust on the cover so thick

I had to wipe it twice.

Someone circled a number in pen,

dark ink on faded paper,

and I don't know the handwriting,

don't know who they were calling,

don't know if they ever dialed it,

if the person who answered

knew why they were being reached,

if it mattered.

The number is disconnected now.

The business it belonged to

closed before I was old enough

to remember businesses closing,

before everything went digital

and made paper lists

into monuments of obsolescence.

But someone held this book.

Someone pressed a pen to this page.

Someone thought this number was important enough

to mark it,

to circle it,

to come back to it later.

And then they forgot.

Or they remembered.

Or they called it and it went somewhere

and nothing came of it.

Now it's just a mark,

a ghost of a need,

a trace of a hand

that belonged to someone

I'll never know,

pressed into paper

that nobody uses anymore,

asking questions

that I can't answer.

I close the book.

The dust rises.