Still Here

Dust lifts in the light like something trying to leave

Sunrise bleeds through the blinds whether I want it to or not

The bird outside doesn't know what I'm carrying

It just sings

Candle wax pools on the sill, the wick nearly gone

I haven't replaced it

The air comes up warm from below, yeast and flour, the bakery starting its day without asking my permission

Beauty arrives like that

Sudden, uninvited, a little cruel

Light inches across the cracked floor the way time does

Slow and indifferent and exact

I have been a ghost in rooms I furnished myself

Marcus is not in this poem

He is in the floor, the wax, the bread smell I have learned to love without him

The bird reaches something I can't name and I let it

Dawn doesn't ask if I'm ready

I remain

That's the whole of it

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--Vera