Closing the Teeth

The blue glow of the television is a cold sort of salt

that keeps the walls from drifting into the hall.

I watch a stranger’s gloved hands come to a halt

at the edge of a frame where the heavy curtains fall.

There is a sound like a dry branch dragged across a stone,

a mechanical rattle of metal teeth biting the air.

It is the noise of being definitively alone,

of plastic sealing shut a life that isn't there.

I sit in the quiet and feel my own pulse go thick,

counting the seconds between the image and the breath.

It’s just a slider, a bit of hardware, a common trick,

but it sounds like the final, jagged signature of death.