The Click

I was reading. The line was about

the way people leave.

My bedside lamp was bright

and I was underneath its light.

Then I saw the filament go white.

The coil. The spiral.

The geometry of how things burn.

How everything's made to turn

to ash, to nothing, to dark.

Then it clicked. A spark

of sound like something breaking.

The page went black. No taking

it back. No way to see

what the line said about leaving me.

I sat there in the dark.

My eyes on where the words were.

I had to find my phone to blur

the darkness back to sight.

By then I'd forgotten what they'd said.

The light was gone. The line was dead.