A Life of Almost

I collect beginnings.
Pile them up like receipts.
Each one proof I was there.

Tonight the candle is low.
Its wax pooled and cool at the edges.
Still I haven't blown it out.

That's what I do with things I haven't finished.
I leave them lit.
I leave them open.
I call it hope.
It's not.

It's a habit of starting.
A terror of the last line.
Every story I own ends mid-sentence.
Every love I've held
stopped short of the period.

I know the shape of almost.
I know it the way I know
the cold side of the mattress.
The unread last page.
The draft I never sent.

A heap of first steps.
A life assembled from arrivals
that never settled into stay.

I'm still here with the pile.
Still adding to it.
That's the only thing I've ever finished.

--Vera