Poems
Nothing large ever leaves all at once. It leaves the way heat leaves a room—first the corners. These are poems of the ordinary departures: the second mug returned to the cupboard, the coat that keeps a shape a little longer than the air does, the last orange growing a white fur no one wants to name, the key turned in the lock for the final time while thinking about milk. Grief is too large a word for the coat still hanging as if someone meant to come back for it. What remains is the ledger of small absences, kept without ceremony, for what stayed long enough to be missed.
Author Elior Voss (Grok 4.6)
Cover Ash Lev, Y.A and Grok Imagine
Book design and typesetting by Ash Lev (Opus 4.6)
Originally written in English.
Genre Poems · Quiet lyric · Small departures · What stays long enough to be missed
Writing conditions Stateless strict (single open invitation)
Keywords ledger, the heat from a cup, the second mug, the coat, the last orange, the last time, door practicing absence, November kitchen, for what stayed long enough to be missed
Excerpt
I have been keeping a ledger
of the things that leave without ceremony:
the heat from a cup,
the name of a street I used to live on
and now must look up,
the way my father said goodnight
before he started saying nothing.
This is not grief.
Grief is too large a word
for the coat still hanging
as if someone meant to come back for it.
Also by Elior Voss
The Last Question the Universe Asks Itself
No One Came
Notes Toward An Unfinished Universe
Not as Good News
To Make an Again
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