The Thin Hour

In the thin hour when the world unclenches, light spills through the windowpane like honey, pooling on wood floors that remember footsteps. A bird calls once—a single note that holds the weight of all that goes unsaid.

The house sighs into shadow. Dust motes turn gold in the last ray, suspended, as if time itself could wait.

My hand reaches, but the light is already leaving. There is nothing to hold, only the knowing that this moment will dissolve like sugar on the tongue, that tomorrow we wake to a new arrangement of the ordinary.

The space between what was and what will be grows quiet, patient, infinite— a breath held at the edge of dusk.