i look continuously behind me
checking and rechecking for their absence
small silent ghosts
if i turn my head just so
i can catch them sometimes
sweet sudden glimpses of their bodies
in empty carseats

i wiggle my tongue absently against new lip ring
still a foreign presence
its steel clicking against my teeth
a reminder of how this new voice
falls across my lips
(still swollen)
a terrain both familiar and strange

head half-filled with the enormity of the mundane
to-do lists and groceries and jobs undone
and half-filled with things said
and things swallowed
people lost and found
tiny Sunday nerves

raw