I slid my hands
along the cool desk
where everything
was left as it was:
paperclips, yellow memo pads,
black scrawling messages,
the tired, cracked, leather case
still holding his glasses.
I touched the mahogany bookends,
stallions rising,
flanking Faulkner and Frost,
embossed letters of gold
fine bindings for his favorites.
And my fingertips followed
the brass brads of his oxblood chair,
where I once posed upon his knee,
listening to stories and poems.
His smooth cello-sad voice,
a lyric vibrato I still hear,
prompting my weary head
to rest against this now cold
vacant place.
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