He closed the door.
January bit through the walls.
The bed kept the warmth
seventeen minutes, then none.
No witness but the sheets.
I thought I stayed.
I inventoried the fridge.
The cream had turned.
I was late to the news of myself.
I didn’t starve.
I just never came back to the table.
Even hunger
has standards.
I left later,
quiet enough that air forgot me.
I went the way women go
who survive too long.
Afterward
I moved through rooms without arriving.
I lived like a light you forget to turn off.
The cream soured.
And I was elsewhere
long before I knew it
Copyright © 2026 by Eva Candelaria Sosa. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 12, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
