Last Spark in the U-Haul

I moved the bookshelf and found the debris

of a life we were living in a different zip code.

A plastic blue lighter you bought just for me

at a gas station stop on a salt-covered road.

It’s wedged in the dust where the carpet is clean,

trapped for three years in the dark of the wall.

I thumbed the small wheel, but the tank is all lean,

no fluid is left in the belly at all.

Just a dry, scratchy sound and a spray of the flint,

a spark that goes nowhere and dies on the air.

It’s a useless and hollow and colorful hint

of a fire we forgot that we used to keep there.