Seventeen years later, my grandmother still lines her shoes up next to his.
And it reminds me of the last scene in Brokeback Mountain where Ennis
buttons Jack’s shirt, which is tucked inside his own.
How often we fold the people we miss inside our belongings,
how often what remains is a thin film, a residue of something
too caustic to be removed with Drano or Lysol, like a canker sore
still bleeding in the gums of its owner, three months after it formed.
Yesterday there was a bowl of apples on the table
as the sky deepened into evening, into pink ash, the fireflies
making love so loudly outside that every flash of light
was an expression of gratitude. My grandmother always taught me
to pour lemon juice over fruit before packing it away in the fridge,
so it would remain fresh there, sitting in a plastic bag,
its core turning bittersweet and brown. But yesterday
after she went to bed, I tiptoed into the kitchen, my footsteps
disappearing behind me like lilypads in a pond,
and discovered that she had left one out for him,
a knife, too, its serrated edge tilted slightly upward,
as if waiting for the skin that would never come.