A Poem by Lisa Becker

I tried to read it for you but
I couldn’t get past that dog-eared page.
Plus your clothes were still in the dryer.
I couldn’t wash them again for a long time after that no matter
how much I wore them.
There’s a hair on the soap in the shower
how could your hair be there when you’re gone?
Then there’s your toothbrush.
It was brand new, and everyone knows you keep a toothbrush
for three months so how could a toothbrush
outlive you
I can’t understand
why you didn’t fix the towel rack
the one that we knocked down when
we made love up against the wall and
after we finished
you started your new book but
you only got to page 72.