Slow light is breaking
beyond the donkey’s pasture.
Inside the darkened house
brightness rims the shutters.
Sunlight strains before it breaks,
fattens to a saffron seam.
A saint’s pageant flashes
and slides across the room.
Morning runs riot—
a tumbler’s leap of shadows.
A chandelier rides the ceiling,
the writing desk blanches
in the changed light—shivers
and stares. All of it quick
as lakewater dried in your hair,
a flame blown loose from the wick.