and she hovered improbably above the patio
on that autumn morning, she caught me
with a filament across the brow.

Now, here comes the longest night.
People gather around solstice fires
as sparks drift into whatever comes next.

Angels, too, must have a ritual for this,
the moment of perfect imbalance
when the dark gathers in one place.

They must lean into it, their weightlessness
floating us through gravity’s fingers. Even so,
I need a face. One I might recognize.

Take this photograph of my aunt Claudia
who died in childbirth years before I was born.
How do you know what’s no longer there?

Or take the field mouse that nibbled on a seed
under the feeder that late November evening.
A blink of owl-white and it was gone.

What we don’t know comes out of nowhere,
takes us up to the other side of doubt.
She’s gone, but traces of her remain.

A dun-shaded egg sac tucked in a corner
out of sight, full of now and hereafter.
Or light. Or wings.

Or that which floats or falls
when let go
into our cousin night.