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Toward the hour when thought arrives without disguise,

the world withdraws its surfaces and folds its noise into the walls.

In the vacancy it leaves,

a space inclines —

a narrow frame holding only one body at a time.

And there, as if drawn through a seam,

the ones I have loved step forward.

The ones I cannot reach by name anymore.

They meet me in this slant of quiet

the way light meets dust —

without effort,

without history needing to be explained.

And it is not chance that these moments are fleeting,

they were made that way.

These moments thin on their own, they were always going to.

But it is the speed at which magic enters

that keeps a friend from fading.

It is the skies they call to

that awakens hearts until the breathing is easy.

And surely it is easy,

and surely we have the time.

And surely it is alive,

or these angles wouldn’t be forever.

Though they are —

forever and for — there is a beat,

and ever for, we can breathe for every moment

they stay forever more.

They remain, unnamed,

yet here.

The pulse of them hums beneath my ribs,

a tremor in the marrow,

a quiet tide moving through the hollow of the night.

And I am held by something wider than a word;

the relief of being carried —

through the dim hour,

through the thin press of air,

through the bodies we once touched,

through trembling beneath breaths.

And when the light comes into the rooms that hold,

it does not ask for anything.

It simply warms what is still here.