here is the desk.
it doesn't open the way hands do.
i have tried every key, but there are too many and
i would ask, but the words waver after a while, hand-written
because i have called for you again and again
and only paper answers pen.

it could be that this is not a room,
and the floor is not flat, and no patterns exist
in the tiles, and i am not seeing anything
that you used to own. i thumb a book of names
found in the top drawer because
you would phone them often, and for a while
they called me instead, asking for you, and i would
explain how their voices permeated your voice,
how we have all become one sound,
talking walls, talking frames, talking pictures
because the picture frames are not down from the walls, they are
right where you left them.