What You Do With Your Hands After

Two weeks of rationing—three pages, then

two, then one—the end a thing I knew

was coming and kept back. And then.

Last line. I closed it. Lay back through

the silence of a finished thing. Both hands

flat on the cover, spine toward the lamp

I hadn't turned off. The room expands

a little in that kind of light—too damp

with quiet, too wide. I was waiting for

I don't know what. The story to restart.

Some sign. The ceiling. Nothing more.

The lamp was burning. That was the hard part—

the lamp still on at midnight, book on chest.

I must have slept. I don't remember the rest.