Deep Grooves

I was hunting for a double-A battery

in the kitchen drawer where the loose change goes,

and I pulled out this blue Bic cap instead,

chewed flat and white at the edges.

You used to do that when you were thinking,

leaving these jagged, frantic little pits

in the plastic while the TV hummed

and we sat on opposite ends of the couch.

It’s been three years of packing boxes,

of moving the dust from one floor to the next,

and yet I can’t throw away this piece of trash

because your nervous habit is still trapped here,

a fossil of a Tuesday night

when we still had things to talk about.