Dead Air

It’s been cooking behind the radiator,

gathering a skin of grey lint and grit.

I wrote it when I was still the agitator,

full of the words I shouldn't have lit.

The ink has paled to a bruised kind of blue

and the paper is brittle, smelling of old dust.

I thought I had so much to say to you

about the break and the bending of trust.

I licked the flap but the glue has gone dry,

a bitter chemical taste on my tongue.

There is no way to make a dead thing fly

or take back the stones that were already flung.