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poem submitted to "The Last Page Was/Is" poetry contest
John Lawless, sponsor, September 2, 2026
Like memory, the ending of the book didn’t vanish all at once. The last page thinned~ softened at the edges, the details loosening until the final moment slipped free without sound. And the book, like the mind, carries that quiet loss in its body. It holds the absence quietly. A slight slackness in the binding, as if the remaining pages remember the weight that once pressed against them~ a narrow gap where the ending should rest~ the kind of space memory leaves when it can no longer hold the last detail. Even the margins keep their own kind of recollection. Along the edge, a faint scatter of paper dust clings to the corner~ the residue left when a moment has been touched too many times. What once was clear dims, the details loosening as memory lets go at its edges. Where the page used to lead my gaze, there’s just a slight mark left behind~ a ghost fold remains, a crease without direction~ the slight impression of a moment once held close and now softened by time. So the story, like memory itself, arrives at its ending earlier now. Not abruptly, just sooner. The missing page is the quiet memory leaves when it can no longer hold the last moment. And in that space, I sense the rest~ the way recollection offers its final truth through what has already thinned into silence.
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