Shaving

It was not clear exactly what had changed

between this night and the one before it.

Tracing his steps to the window he looked

outside before unlatching the curtains

marking the moon and rooftops illumined,

as he would check his face in the morning.

Scanning his room showed nothing had moved,

glasses half-lotus on the mantelpiece,

book waiting to be righted by the bed,

little piles of unfinished thoughts ignored.

His life a shaving thinner than before,

another wafer skin of self he’d shed.