Moon at Half Past Noon

A lamp once flickered upon your face—

a morning light so bright, the sun itself

seemed to have lent its fire to your skin.

In those days, the very air was an heirloom,

carrying the scent of kerosene and your particular sunlight.

My question was a small thing—a single drop of ink.

“These prayers we gather like dust in our palms—

where, finally, do they go?”

But it fell on the white paper of your faith

and began to spread until the page was black.

The flame that lit our shared ground

shattered into the long shadows of evening.

The starlight we once watched through the holes of an old quilt

now feels like a cold, distant proof of a message sent.

The sun has turned to stone upon the damp earth.

A line etched itself across your brow—

the thick, sick silence of a border

being drawn between two sovereign hearts.

You demanded a kingdom of blind belief;

I was only a traveler, asking for the road.

And for that—only that—the path to your heart

collapsed into a canyon.

Now trust lies at our feet like broken glass.

We cannot lift it. We cannot walk upon it.

We are rooted in our separate places,

as the ground beneath us turns to ice.