That Which Remains

The boardroom was a polished lake,
voices skipping like flat stones across its surface,
names of projects dissolving into fluorescent light.

A pen tapped, paused, tapped again,
a metronome for urgency that never lasted.
We thought the weight was in the ledgers,
in the contracts that smelled faintly of new ink and ambition,
yet now it is the janitor’s quiet humming in the hallway
that returns, soft as moss under shoe leather,
refusing the tidy shelves of forgetting.

At home the domestic constellations rearranged themselves,
steam rising from a sink like a ghost rehearsing departure,
the stubborn drip of a faucet carving patience into stone.

Plates set down, lifted, set down again—ritual without scripture.

We believed the anniversaries, the birthdays,
were the iron anchors in memory’s seabed,
but those have rusted into vague shapes;
instead, it is the smell of damp wool on a chair,
the flicker of a kitchen bulb half-loyal to its socket,
that grips the mind like burrs clinging to a passing sleeve.

In solitude, hours gathered like dust in the corners of thought,
harmless, we said, sweepable, postponable.
A glance out a window at nothing in particular,
a passing reflection in a darkened screen,
the dry whisper of pages turned without urgency.
these were the scraps we cast aside.
Yet they bloom now into enormous flowers,
petals thick with the nectar of what was never deemed worthy,
their scent paradoxical—both sweet and rusted—
teaching us that neglect is a kind of secret devotion.

So many moments once shooed away
have become the marrow of recollection,
a ledger rewritten in invisible ink,
revealed only under the slow heat of passing years.

Even now, I remember early manhood:
a ladybug lit upon the back of my hand,
a small red ember with black punctuation.
I blew it away—once, twice—
but always it returned, as if tethered by some unseen thread.
At last I held my hand near a single rose
in a narrow vase on my desk,
and the ladybug lifted off, settling into the leaves—
a quiet annex to my labor.
I cannot recall when, or if, it ever left that place;
sometimes I look at the back of my hand,
certain I feel that slight, deliberate touch again,
as though it has chosen, still, to return.