She sits on the dock in the growing night,
swings her bare feet,
while crickets chirp and fireflies blink
In her hand, she holds a light, warm against her skin
Like a living creature, it presses against her ribs
and makes her green eyes smile

The dress she wears is a patchwork of all
she has done
She painted out her life with
her own hands,
used green and brown thread to make the roads

One of them led to a man
with a tongue like a snake
He spilled poison and licked at her light
His cool words made her forget
her roads and everything she painted

But she didn’t let him take the light
Claws on her heart,
stars in her mouth,
Jupiter pulling at her ankles,
and all of nature screaming in her ears
She’d be lost
if she let him win

The girl with the light –
she didn’t talk to me,
just showed me the stitches on her dress
so I could see what she saw

She and I waved goodbye
under the cold moonlight
Mixed with the glowing
light in her hand
and the sparks in her eyes,
it was cliché and beautiful and
I knew by then
I would never see her again.