Brent Pallas

When they first came their mouths agape their bodies shining like beetles about to stir every edge poised for the multitude of steps some moment of leaping not yet taken their hides stiff shielding some tenderness within, warming to the creak of movement over penitent steps or dusty wastes, unyielding tasks or stony memorials of waiting through the heat of day's quiet middle, every icy threshold or soggy spring their heels flush with pavement, their soles flung aside only for love, all the tattered maps of their seams, every unforgiving rub.

The day had finally come when everything there seemed misplaced or out of place as an ex's box of things. The unused beside the irreplaceable, the easy- to-assemble uncomplicated now by disuse. Some hand of randomness leaving behind its lampshades stained like ancient maps, its ladders still climbing upward, and enough old tools to restart a world. Every drawer filled with the other half of things. Everything care embraced, and held once as new, left too ragged for another winter to wear. Its ring of keys dangling by a nail for rooms left long ago. And whatever I said I'd never forget found, just as it seemed completely forgot—all its letters beginning with Dear....