The Three-Day Gap

I stood in the aisle by the canned peas

with Jim from the loading dock,

and when I went to say her name

my throat just seemed to lock.

It’s been forty-eight hours of clicking teeth,

a word stuck behind a heavy bone.

I’ve been humming the first letter

while I sit in the kitchen alone.

It’s like a ghost in the back of the mouth,

a syllable that refuses to land.

I can feel the shape of the vowels

but I can't catch them with my hand.