the other absent
All night we had talked about
Hemingway’s suitcase. Long
before our father’s time, reluctantly
certain of what remained forever
lost or forever found.
That it was not the smell of rain
or blood on concrete. The way
fingers taste of lime and tiny
scratches from the knife
that cuts them. Wound.
Nor the peculiar way a looseness
of string may still retain the power
to bind or strangle. For now I see
that even a battered suitcase
has its own glamour. Its own lie
about being young.
That there is a whole year where
one is present and the other absent.
A whole year where the possibility
once existed.
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