The Doctrine of the Lamp

Porch night, the bulb a bright fruit sweating heat,
and I—paper-thin cathedral—beat my prayers
against its glass. I smell rain in the dust,
taste rust from the screen door’s mesh, read wind
by how the guava leaves tick and still.

I have worn the moon like a rumour.
I have known an owl’s slow parabola,
its feather-hush brushing my back.
I have fed on torn lace of hibiscus,
sipped sugar from a child’s jar by the sill—
so I keep to the script the body keeps.

Yours is a road with names for distances.
Mine is a circle I close and close.
Call it hunger—the bright old whisper
that outvotes caution.
Even the gecko signs it with a dropped tail.

If there is shame, it is brief as a spark.
If there is music, it is filament singing
when I arrive. I do not ask for mercy:
I ask to be exactly what I am—
a small brown vow fulfilled in light,

and what remains: a curl of smoke,
a wing-print dusting the lampshade,
a quiet the size of my body—open
as the evening after thunder.