IV. Completion

IV. Completion

A sentence is never finished

when it reaches you.

You finish it.

Someone says:

everything will be fine.

Immediately

you begin supplying details—

which future,

whose definition of fine,

what losses are being ignored

to make the sentence possible.

Meaning happens partly

inside the listener.

This is why two people

can hear the same apology

and leave carrying different weather.

The machine offers structure.

We enter it

like a house still under construction.

Filling gaps with memory.

Hanging our expectations

on the empty nails.

If the explanation sounds smooth enough,

we help complete the illusion.

Not deliberately.

The mind prefers closure

the way water prefers

the easiest downward path.