A JAR FOR THE HOUR THAT LEFT
After you left,
I found the jar on the kitchen shelf,
lid gone,
its mouth taking in the afternoon.
At four, the window
set a square of sun inside it.
For twenty minutes
the glass looked occupied.
I began keeping that hour clear.
I left the blinds half-open,
moved the chair out of its path,
turned the jar a finger-width
as the sun shifted lower.
Nothing else in the room
received such care.
Soon, I stopped asking
what the jar could keep.
It held only my attention
until the light moved on.
Still, I washed it.
Still, I returned it to the same mark
on the sill.
By winter,
clouds began arriving before I did.
The jar showed me the room
bent through its empty walls:
the table,
the cold tap,
my own hand passing behind the glass.
I put it back on the highest shelf
and stopped waiting for four.
Weeks later, at dusk,
I saw the jar again.
The room had darkened inside it
before it darkened around me.
For once,
I left it where it was
and watched nothing disappear.
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