Top Shelf

I found it behind shoe boxes on the shelf—

a velvet bag drawn shut with cord.

I opened it before I caught myself.

A ring. Gold band. Something I couldn't afford

to know about. She stood there in the door,

face going flat. Not angry. Worse.

A kind of still I hadn't seen before.

That goes in the trash bag. Terse

and final.

We carried the bookshelf down the stairs.

August. The sidewalk white and bare.

I can still feel it in my palm—

not the ring. The pause

before she spoke.

The velvet bag hanging empty

from my other hand.