Our hands move

Stir the dark

Reflect the light

emanating from her skin,

from the dusky spill

of her hair

Where she sits –

luminous, aglow –

in a high-backed chair

carved of ebony

Our hands –

pale moths winging

about her flameless

conflagration –

shift the aromatic

dark

Aflutter

Replicating her glow,

her light.

— C.Birde, 8/21