noctiluca

There is a particular grief
that comes dressed as a good evening —
the bourbon doing what it promised,
the smoke from someone’s cigarette
making a slow decision
about which way to drift.

And then his voice.
Not loud. Never loud.
The way he holds the note the way you’d hold
something alive in your mouth
and not bite down —
the way the note just stays there,
warm and a little afraid,
and the whole room
drops a half inch without knowing it.

Tracey was laughing,

Both hands on the bar

Nursing her drink
Rachel’s chair was empty

the way chairs get empty
when the person who always sat there
doesn’t anymore —
not dramatically,
just factually,
the way a room rearranges itself
around what it’s missing
and doesn’t mention it —
and I was just —
Gone…

for the length of one held note,
into the specific understanding
that this exact room,
this light, this smoke,
these people I have somehow
kept,
will not hold the same shape again.
The bourbon knew.
The smoke knew.
His voice named it
before I could open my mouth —
the grief of the beautiful evening,
the glow of a thing
in the dark
that glows
because it has to.