Seven, sitting at the desk that was yours

Though I barely remembered you there.

Above me the rows of your law books,

Their beige spines nicked and crinkled,

The somber squares near the tops black

As the robes of judges and in each one

Gold script flaking into your absence,

Into the settling dust of your dying.

Over the ink stains and cigarette burns

Of the oak I learn to write with the stub

Of a pencil on the back of a shirt board,

And I think only now that it was yours,

Copying from your books those words

I would never know, knowing you did,

Imagining you reading over my shoulder.

Beginning to learn the injustice of death.