What Comes Back

It doesn’t knock.

Just slides under the sill—

the same draft that used to rattle

the loose pane in ’09.

I feel it first in the knuckles.

Then the ribs.

A slow unspooling of something

I thought I’d sanded down,

painted over,

locked in a drawer with the dead batteries.

There.

On the counter: the mail,

a half-drunk glass of water,

the quiet doing its usual work.

Then the hum.

Not the fridge. Not the street.

The exact pitch of my father’s truck

idling in the gravel,

though he’s been gone six years.

I don’t turn toward the window.

Let it sit.

Let the sound pool in the floorboards,

seep into the drywall seams.

It doesn’t ask for recognition.

Just presses its weight against the air

until the room remembers how to hold it.

Outside, a branch scrapes siding.

Inside, my thumb finds the groove

on the arm of this chair,

worn smooth by waiting.

It’s not him. It’s never him.

Just the shape he left behind,

coming back to fill it.

I leave the glass on the table.

Walk to the sink.

The water runs cold.

I let it run.