The Threshold Hour

The hour dissolves to copper light, a spoon stirring through empty cups— somewhere, a bell has stopped its ringing.

Your hands were smaller then, turning pages no one else could read, the spine of every book a door we'd slam too quietly to hear.

Now the trees forget their names, and I forget which ones I climbed. The sky performs its old arithmetic, dividing day from what comes after.

One more hour and the streetlamps wake, their brief yellow arithmetic burning through the gathering blue— and I am standing in the threshold, unable to choose between the dark and light.