Elegy

^{after Jill Osier}
 

Rustles in the silence
as one numbered page
separates from another,

a forefinger slid along paper’s edge,
down and in, occasional
snapped aspects,
folded corners. To open

an old book
and push your face in
and breathe its musty
thunders. All its days
and silences of sun
slipping along its spine

(another time’s
lines of smoke or scrawl
as another child grows up).

All its hands and eyes and breaths
and different rooms
of waiting in the dark.