Someone Else's Weather

I came back to sheets folded wrong, the faint

smell of someone else's soap, the key

returned on the hook. No complaint,

no note. The place like me

but not. I set my bag down.

Then saw it: ceiling, above the bed.

Oval. Dinner-plate-round.

Darker at the edge where it dried. The spread

of it almost neat. Like weather

from a month I wasn't here.

I've been looking at it. Whether

to call. The dried outer ring. The clear

almost-white at the center. Most

of it's quiet now. Two days.

The subtenant gone. The host

of explanations. The gaze

I keep giving the ceiling.

I haven't called.