The Inventory

The silence is a physical weight in the ears.

On the coffee table, the evidence remains:

a single slice of pizza, the crust like a pier

jutting into a sea of red wine stains.

There’s a hair stuck to the cheese, a black thread

from a head that isn't resting in this room.

I look at the ring on the coaster, the spread

of a blurry red stamp, a mark of my doom.

It’s the quiet that gets you, the way the light

insists on showing the crumbs and the glass.

Everything looks different than it did last night.

Everything looks like it’s waiting to pass.