I rolled this scrap of paper tight,

sealed it with tallow and bottle-green glass,

and tossed it across the wet grey slate of the street—

        or into the gutter, 

          or into the tide,

I stare out from  an attic window just three doors down,

where the kettle whistles like a gull with a broken wing.

Listen: the horizon is bruising purple again,

fat with old rain and heavy with thunder that forgets to strike.

We have both tasted that iron dust, haven’t we?

The slow, quiet tragedy of counting shadows,

believing the sky is only made of slate.

It isn’t.

Our chests were never meant to hold single, lonely fires.

They are shared vaults, drafty and wide,humming on the very same borrowed string.

Every grief we carry is halved the moment palms touch;

every wild bit of love we cling to

is the only gold that never tarnishes in the damp.

So take the ragged hours—

even the ones that pinched and tore—

sweep them up from the floorboards like copper shavings,

and fling them out into the center of the room.

Let them be sawdust under our dancing shoes.

Turn the grief into a reel, a waltz, a stomp,for every scrap of light we ever had,and the secret feasts that wait for us yet.

Do not be tricked by the heavy ceiling of smoke.

Just an arm’s length above the velvet dark,the sun is blinding, gold, and utterly awake.

It has not forgotten how to burn;it is simply waiting for you to breach the fog.

Reach out your fingers through the chill.

Catch my hand, catch each other’s,

and burn like the stubborn,

blazing star you are.