The Relic
by Kip Knott
CW: Suicide Mention
Once, after I wiped the TV screen clean, tar from your cigarettes blackened the paper towel I used, and I ranted in front of our friends how you were killing us.
Now, cleaning out our bedroom, I find your heavy crystal ashtray—empty, cold, black as volcanic glass—under your side of the bed.
I hold the ashtray up to the bare bulb buzzing overhead and examine every inch of it like an archaeologist. But no light cracks through, no hidden messages appear like hieroglyphs that can be deciphered into the final words of your suicide note.
Kip Knott’s work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Cathexis Northwest Press, La Piccioletta Barca, and One Art. He is also a regular monthly contributor to Versification. His debut full-length poetry collection—Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on—is available from Kelsay Books. More of his work may be accessed at kipknott.com.