Lizzy Burnam 🐞

The men have no interest in telling time;
they will wait or they won’t for you.

They wear their Apple Watches to bed and count
the number of steps not taken.

But the number of nails hammered, the number of emails sent,
the number of evergreens chopped down to strip the landscape 

and make room for billboard ads: These numbers
are irrelevant. What matters truly

is the lack:‌ The place you lost the damn car keys. 
The chain lock you forgot to latch before bed.

The space your body used to fill,
now sodden with gin

and sweet cream butter, melted in the microwave.
The men want the evidence removed.

They want to complain about the neighbor’s loud vibrator
or the plow truck scraping the pavement 

during the morning’s lake-heavy snow. 
When you stand in the parking lot and stare 

up at the window with moon-yellow eyes,
you are no closer than when you opened your mouth

as wide as you could take him. The men get off 
on that empty space. They take off like a rocket 

into the soup you made and all over the pillowcases
you bought on a whim. The truth is, 

many roads lead backward—even this one, 
nursing the same cramp in your iPhone. 

Nobody really wants to sit in silence, anyway; 
that’s something poets do 

to bask in the sad chime 
of a love leftover.