What Your Voice Promised
You folded a shirt until the seam sealed a sentence.
Each crease was a stamp pressed shut — fold, press, set aside.
You stacked them: unmailed pages, tidy and unread.
In the kitchen you didn’t ask for sugar; your finger traced
our small circle for second helpings —
a gesture still carrying its own grammar.
Silence opened a bureau in the hall: drawers labeled
with answers I had kept for you — thin slips of paper
I never dared to send.
I remembered your hum before breakfast:
the soft tuck of paper into an envelope,
a sound that promised delivery.
Last night, on an envelope, you wrote:
I am learning to listen
to what silence keeps.
This morning you spoke one word: Here.
It lay on the table like a stamp no one noticed until now —
already stuck, already sent.
A shirt slipped from the stack into my lap;
I held it, not knowing if I’d been given a gift
or a reminder.
Copyright © Saeed Koushan | Year Posted 2025
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