Dead Static

It’s propping the door of the basement open,

a brick of yellowed, onion-skin ghosts.

Ten thousand names that were never spoken,

and the addresses of vanishing hosts.

I turn to the M’s and my thumb leaves a tear

in a page that is thin as a leaf.

There’s a woman I knew for a single year

buried here in this alphabet grief.

Nobody dials these numbers tonight,

they belong to the landlines and wires.

It’s a record of people who fell out of sight

and the small, disconnected desires.