Negative Space

I slide off the buckle and let the strap fall,

shadows of copper against the bathroom wall.

But there on my wrist is a strip of the moon,

a reminder that August has ended too soon.

The skin is so pale where the ticking was kept,

protected and soft while the rest of me slept.

It’s a ghost of a circle, a white, narrow track,

of a heat that is never, quite, coming back.