Stay

Certain scents cling 
to your hands, your hair, 
though you've barely touched 

them— citrus spray, garlic 
oil. And there's the way sunlight 
fills a water pitcher at the edge 

of the counter— you wonder at  
that kind of brightness, its taste,  
how you might cup a handful 

before it evaporated. There are 
things whose passing you'll grieve, 
sharp as a shard of laughter 

floating in a hallway long 
after the one who lofted it into 
the air has left. Once, the shape

of the future was a mere speck 
in a wilderness of tomorrows, but
now the light has shifted. Mourn

the wasp that expired to sweeten 
the garden inside the fig, and also
the woolen sock whose mate went

missing. Days later, you find it
tucked into a sheet corner: a message 
saying Not yet gone, not yet gone.