I am microwaving Indian food for you, a favor among other favors I do when I feel guilty*. Washing your dishes. Taking your socks off. Holding the door.
Venturing in the basement to sit under fluorescents on the vinyl couch
while your food thaws.

*The guilt often
overwhelms itself.
Drifts so deeply into me
that it has to come up
some other way,
with some childish
need to hit and spit.

And in the evening, sometimes, when you aren’t around to dote upon, I take inventory of your artifacts, and excavate, peeking at your fossils**, and find:

1. High school ID. 3 years past.
2. Greeting card. Signed by a grandparent.
3. Glassy-eyed photograph. Indiscernible girl within.
4. Tin of Adderall. 10.5 pills total.

**They come from another life,
your fossils.
A life I am privy to
only in small stolen glances,
stories of
what you’ve brought
around the bend, thought worthy
enough to…