The Things You Left Behind Poem by Thomas Bishop

In my bathroom
your toothbrush still in its cup
and beneath it lurks a dark and sinister poem,
the kind that looks over my shoulder when I
pick at tiled walls in a slow fury.

In my bedroom
your image trapped behind glass
the one that makes me think of David Bowie
and coiled on your face the oily poetry
of a thousand drunken thumbprints

In my kitchen
the remnants of your last meal
scrawled in syrup and toasted breadcrumb-braille
and in the rattle of the fridge
a poem that speaks itself loudest at night.