I distrust what preaches of progression toward certain resolution.
It was a blue and gold day. The first of many tinged with the growing colors
of autumn.
Leftover blue of a wing; a wave, cold and crested by a lone surfboarder.
A sky that looked almost like memory preserved whole. Almost.
We stood on the periphery, craning our necks upward.
Afterward is not just what or how much might remain, not just
the message of consolation as repair.
Sirens moved down the boulevard as trucks and buses moved aside.
It is rumored that there are now only two custodians assigned the cleaning
of one building.
The labor of love is equal to the labor of grief.
Someone has to climb the ladder.
Coats in the hall closet look like they have kept the shapes of
shoulders that have long slipped out of them.
There are messages left on office phones that do not ask for a reply.
Messages made entirely of silence, and yet take up time.
Taking inventory sometimes means only fragments remain.
They still matter, beyond any account of their usefulness.
That pause in the weather. Half a sentence carried by wind.
The scent of soap, the trace of oil on a sleeve.