Back To Why We’re Really Here
by Jess Walter
I watch you read
from your book,
you content
and quiet
as a sleeping cat,
the book loved and tattered
like an old dog,
and all I can think
is how you’re
the sound of a leaf
parting from its branch
in autumn.
I begin to remove my
eyes from your
face, half-lit by sky,
then I hear the leaf fall
against the ground,
and I realize
you are that sound,
too.