One night I came out through the wood. Hardened and cracked open. Salt wings flaking off, moving to other towns.

Falling down like fiberglass from the rafters.

Wedged between the slats, in an orange forest speckled and alive with stone columns.

Faraway light could be heard, harsh over fields and parking lots.

I called out to the night too, joining the 8pm sound of the train.

Sounds of dusk, forks scraping on plates.

Watching beyond the smoke stacks and wondering,

Do you still sleep on the pull-out couch?

Bottles tumbling down the road below, your breath slowing with the cars.

When I found you on the bank of the river

my skin was soft, and I often said the wrong thing.

One night I slipped on the wet bank, falling into the water as it swelled.

I was taken with the water down the ridge. I was speaking but only water filled my eyes, my mouth hung open filled with ice. Spinning into the cold trees laid across the river, caught in the branches beneath the current. It was not dark but instead blood white, a flashlight flickering on above my eyelids.

But that isn't really what happened. I'd watched you ahead of me as you walked along the bank, watched as you slipped and were gone. Then only white foam, the water clamoring for you.

I went in after you. But now I also lay beneath the sound of the water, listening as it rushed over me.

You are gone now, but nothing is missing.

Coming into you, I thought you were a room

You just weren't.

A dry moth emerges from a wet wall.