Witness

.

The bright one doesn't ask

for company

but gets it anyway

scattered points of light

keeping their distance,

°

the way grief does,

the way love does,

hovering just outside

the radius of the burning.

°

Clouds move through

like thoughts that won't

commit to meaning,

blurring the edges

of everything certain.

°

Still the bright one holds.

Just there

the way the dead stay,

the way memory

refuses the dark

completely.

°

I stand on the porch

and let the night

be large enough

for all of it.