The way is written in the dark:
it has steel in it, something metallic, a gun,
a mallet, a piece of machinery—
something cold like the sea, something,
a nervous shudder. If it
were to go on, the next stanza
would snuff out sound.
It would stand in a forest
that cannot bring you faith and a woman
carrying a basket of glass jars gives one
to you. They carry dying fireflies. No,
they’re dried hands holding lit matches
and she tells you it’s your light, it’s your fucking light.
Copyright © 2015 by Oliver de la Paz. Reprinted from Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database.