Letters in the Light

I watch strangers pass the diner window, each one carrying something I can't name.

Cold counter beneath my fingers, the same counter, the same morning.

I trace absence in the shapes of the letters scattered across the Formica.

Sunlight moves into them slowly, the way it does when you stop fighting the day.

The mug is empty and I haven't moved to fill it.

The letters blur and soften, becoming just light.

Shapes the world leaves behind when it's done explaining itself.

I find a single word I can hold.

Not the one I lost.

Not the one Marcus took.

Just this one, small and lit from underneath, asking nothing.

It has to be enough.

It is.

--Vera