Hinge at Dusk

She waits where briar worries the pale fence,
in the hush between petal and prickle—
a crown of blossoms catching the last light,
as if evening had chosen her shoulder.

Behind, the woods—heavy with forgetting—
say little; leaves hiss and lift the dust.
Her eyes hold weather that hasn’t decided,
the kind that keeps thunder on its tongue.

Her dress—moon-thread—clings like a vow half-tied.
Not a queen, not a revenant either—
just what the understory names by silence,
sap marking her wrists for passage.

Arms folded, not for fear but for heat,
she keeps the bright ache unbound.
She tests the thorns with the back of her hand,
lets their burrs take a little of her.

At her heels, the track splits clean:
one bright with meadow, one blue with shade.
She hooks a heel into briar, parts stems with her calf,
and walks a line no map admits—
a thin new brightness opening through the nettles.