A Life
Published in Rosebud (2023)

This must be it.
You come with a genuine smile,
not too bright to give too much hope,
to heighten, overwhelm the expectation,
and with enough shadow to remind
there’ll always be darkness.

You instantly paint an opening

that paves the way to the closing,
like a subtle prayer
with no beginning or ending,

a moment is a life by itself;
how to piece these broken words
to fit the intermittent blanks,
and how irrelevant
the brilliance is glorifying its splendor.