"A Slow Turning"The stairs lengthen each season,though the house remains the same.Names slip from my tongue—like coins through a frayed pocket,clinking faintly in corridors I no longer patrol.I misplace mornings,folding them into afternoonsthat arrive already weary.The calendar stares back...

  Not the label sewn on the inside,  but the hands that passed it down—  Not the boots that walked first,  but how far they let you roam.   We measured riches  in treehouse kingdoms,  in second helpings,  in stories from...

So stain—as marks that remain longer than intent,and hesitation pressed into the grain. Second guess,doubt’s small fracture widening,as though the Voice were drowned,as though we mistook the silencefor absence. But sustain is not the clean note held—it is the rough edge,the...