After the Bells

After the bells fade, the air holds their shape— a resonance without sound, the way silence can press against your palms like a cold coin you've warmed for years.

The room remembers what it heard. Dust motes spiral through that absence, each one a small eternity learning how to fall without rushing.

I've watched the light change on a single wall, the shadow of leaves drawn and redrawn until the afternoon understands it will never be young again.

What we hold closest loses its weight. The heaviest things—grief, love, the names we give to spaces where people used to stand— these become weightless first.