I hung up because reception was bad and your dad was in the next room grading papers, kissing students, whatever he does but I don’t see because I don’t see it.

Your voicemail flashed and I deleted the text telling me you’d left messages, one two three, and I marked five papers, each more absent than the last and a student came in and asked me what a comment meant and I said, “It’s a tick,” when actually it was your name and a heart and an arrow through it.

You wrote every book in my office and the mantelpiece photos are you but not you because no-one can see, and when they see, if they see, I’m a skinable fuck.