A poem in six parts
Night Letters
Scroll slowly. Each line arrives on its own, settles, and then lets go — the way a thought does at three in the morning, when the house is quiet and the lamp is still on.
Scroll
i
We keep the small hours
the way the sea keeps light —
reluctantly, and lit from below.
ii
You said the dark was only
an unfinished sentence.
I believed you. I still do.
iii
Somewhere a lamp is left on
for someone who is not coming.
That is a kind of love too.
iv
The house settles. The floor
remembers every footfall
and forgives all of them.
v
If you are reading this
at three in the morning,
you are not the only one awake.
for everyone who stayed up
waiting for a word —
this is the word.
Stay.
Night Letters · for the awake