Threshold of Light


merciful,
healing black.
a cocoon of frigid silence.
a numbing empty void.

i can’t stay here,

i won’t.

But ohh the pain of this bleeding,
you...

us.

it runs,

a rivulet,
t
 h
   i
    c
     k,

carmine,      clotting.

just
there beyond the barrier.
just
there at the threshold.
just
there as my fingertips
graze...
the fibrin of my healing,
the scab, that I have softened
with the salve of time,
and the syrupy bromides to coat the 'morrow.
it alone pulls me forward,
to a choice beyond these dank, fetid shadows.

a meadow of rebirth
on this stark, sterile landscape.
a mute siren of colors
in the promise of this rainbow.

the piercing sweet blade,
this nightingale’s song
riding the crest
of this threshold of light.