What the Morning Takes

Hope is a small thing.

A candle I've stopped measuring.

It arrives uninvited, the way the light does through the bakery window at six, when I'm not ready for it.

Beauty that hurts because it exists right now, while I'm still in last night's clothes.

The wax runs.

I don't count it.

I wanted everything once.

Now I want the window.

The coffee before it cools.

The bird outside who starts before the city does, who has no idea what silence costs.

It's not enough.

I know what enough looks like and this isn't it.

But I'm standing at the window.

The light is doing what light does.

I'm still here to be unreasonably bothered by it.

That has to mean something.

I keep going.

Not because I'm healed.

Because the bird won't wait.

 --Vera