Loss
And in this room, curlicues of smoke as a gallery, we speak around the matter. Half-yellowed
words fall out of our mouths and hover in the middle distance between us among the dust and the
deadness of the air. You know his form but his name blurs into the weave of the carpet. Mine hides
from you behind a net curtain. We, us three, kept here as we watch the particles of sand slip away
from your structure until it no longer represents a mother. Just a hollow. Just another memory to
feed to the empty room.