Afterglow
As if it were instinct, you held tightly
to a slim bar of sunlight
Devyn Mañibo
Poetry | Poetry Tuesday, poetry
August 6, 2024
August 6, 2024
We already suspected the day was dying,
eyes tailing the sun’s ruddy smears
across the trees who were marking
themselves for death for when
the cold would hold its solemn court.
As if it were instinct, you held tightly
to a slim bar of sunlight, a glowing
fool’s gold that maybe you believed
you could take with you—maybe me,
too, in a back pocket with the safety thread
not yet broken. Where I might belong
when for years I only knew it
in theory, in shock like the way the earth
rumbles before a major event,
rumbles in the memory, groaning with
the omens a crow carries to the window
sealed shut with poor paint. We both
felt the wintry seep, but two pant legs had
already been filled.
