Allowance

13) 

Because we all rise toward the charismatic, 
toward some idea of hope eternal, we turn 

our eyes toward the ceiling, the edge of a window, 
anywhere a strip of amber glimmers, one searing 

moment before night lets the curtains down. 
Why is brief light so beautiful at such a time 

of day? Sometimes I drive under a canopy
arching over certain avenues just to feel 

immersed in that dapple, imagining 
voices speaking from out of the leaves. 

I see clusters of moth wings outlined with Damascus
steel, the glisten of hummingbirds teetering on slips 

of vine. Even the blood inside the hard bronze
carapace of a horseshoe crab radiates fluorescence.