Afterwards

He closed the door.
January bit through the walls.

The bed kept the warmth
seventeen minutes, then none.
No witness but the sheets.

I thought I stayed.

I inventoried the fridge.
The cream had turned.
I was late to the news of myself.

I didn’t starve.
I just never came back to the table.

Even hunger
has standards.

I left later,
quiet enough that air forgot me.
I went the way women go
who survive too long.

Afterward
I moved through rooms without arriving.
I lived like a light you forget to turn off.

The cream soured.
And I was elsewhere
long before I knew it