Everything That Mattered

I kept your blue pillow case with the smell of your hair,
oily and thick, wondered how long it had been
since you’d changed the sheets, how long
before your legs and suspenders tipped down
in sad motion stuffing the tight entryway
of a tiny apartment, disheveled kitchen with mismatched pots
and two hundred dollars in a pickle jar inside the refrigerator,
a disappointed clock stopped at some point
when books leaning on bricks and boards
were everything that mattered,
and plastic sacks held too many white cotton socks;
(you’d forgotten that you bought a pair week after week)
breathing containers that allowed you to inhale
the musty plot of your dark living room as even now
you dwell in a box on the top shelf of my pantry, a man divided
into so many compartments.














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