Your Handwriting on a Grocery List

You left it on the counter.

Milk, bread, the good butter,

cheese (for real this time),

and something I can't read

that might be cilantro

or might be a feeling

you didn't have another word for.

I still have it.

In the drawer with the dead batteries

and the takeout menus

and the other things I keep

not because they're useful

but because your handwriting

is the way I first knew

you were someone I wanted

to keep reading.