Small Bright

Three in the morning, I couldn't find the light,

so I did what my grandmother knew—

I reached for the matches in the drawer that night,

struck one against the box, and through

came that sound, that scrape, the sulfur bloom,

everything rushing into the room.

My face in the window, lit from below,

a stranger looking back at me.

Older. Unfamiliar. Did she know

this face too, watching the small bright, waiting to see

her own reflection flicker and fade

as the flame burned down, the small light she made?

I held the match until it burned my thumb.

The stranger didn't flinch or look away.

Just kept standing there, numb,

in the small bright, through the night, till the day,

watching the wood burn to ash,

watching the fire make its final flash.