Gravity and Other Debts

I was reaching for a name I couldn't keep,

a slip of paper lost behind the wood.

The floor was cold and the shadows were deep,

I was moving much faster than I should.

The brass head was waiting in the grit,

a flat, silent eye looking up at the dark.

My heel found the point and leaned into it,

a sudden, hot metal making its mark.

I sat on the rug to inspect the small hole,

a silver-red crater, a leak in the skin.

It’s a tax on the body, a quiet toll

for forgetting the places that I have been.