Tensile Strength

The biscuit tin smells like pennies and dust.

I dig past the buttons and the needles

to find this olive-green ghost,

wrapped tight around a cylinder of dry pine.

The wood is splintering at the rims,

and the thread is fuzzy, catching the light

like a row of tiny, desperate hairs.

He’s been gone three winters now,

but here is the exact shade of his work jacket.

I tuck the loose end back into the notch,

afraid that if I pull,

the whole room might come unraveled.