Earth Keeps Spinning

What book
do I pull from the shelf
in this hour
marking my friend’s
return to that light-drenched

inkling before everything
collapses?

Which title, which
weight shall I
covet? What
do we hold if not
each other?

Being no one, I cannot say.
The earth keeps spinning
even as I walk
to the mailbox,
anticipating new words.

He cannot read these lines.

I do not write them.

* * *

“Earth Keeps Spinning” was first published by Red River Review in August 2018.