Before I Got Here

I've been in this apartment eight months

and today, on a call I wasn't really on,

I looked up.

The stain is the color of tea that's been sitting.

Shaped roughly like a state —

wider on the left, a small peninsula east.

The outer edge is sharper than you'd expect,

like something that dried slowly

and took its time deciding where to stop.

Darker at the center where it dripped longest.

I thought about the ceiling above the ceiling.

The pipe. The tenant before me.

Whether they stood here watching it happen

or came home to it already done.

The call kept going.

Someone said does that work for everyone

and I said yes.

I've been sitting under this for eight months.

Something happened here before I arrived —

before I taped the cable to the baseboard,

before any of this was mine.