Small Things

You know how you feel when you reach the last page
of the last chapter
of your favorite book?
Suddenly you're drained and empty and can't remember
what you used to do with your time.
It takes weeks to wash the taste of an ending from your mouth.
And that strange horrible hollowness hides under your skin and bobs,
grinning,
to the surface,
when you let your mind wander.

I used to think there was a tea kettle in my chest
and I could feel it whistle,
steam shooting out and piping through my capillaries
until it curled like a dog around my heart.
But only sometimes.
When I sat in the blue-green night while the house slept,
or when dust motes floated, as unconcerned and serene as the galaxies above us,
or when I saw places so vivid in my mind's eye I firmly believed they existed,
they had to.