night-light

& the light shines on the boy, who
stands in the dark, staring at the stars--

he says he's searching for a star to name
after me, I tell him he won't find a broken
star, he tells me to close my eyes.

& he finds a bundle of fallen stars in
a patch of long grass we were hiding in,
& he holds them in his hands until the
heat flows off his hands like fairies--

he then mixes the stars in with the fairies
& puts them all into a jar with my name
written in invisible marker pen on its
pretend glass lid with a safety stop.

'I want to be your night-light' he tells me,
& how do I tell him, he's already saved
me from the darkness, without letting
i's & love's & you's slip out almost by
accident?

& so I keep my lips buttoned with a zip
& hold the jar that still has his fingerprints
all over it & I press my hands inbetween
his prints, as if he's holding on to me
as tight as I am the jar--

but he's wandered into the darkness,
leaving me with the field-made night-
light & promises of tomorrows & day's
after.

& I see him the day after today
& the day after that, until one day
I can't feel the heat of the jar
& I shake it, trying to resuscitate
the light, trying to comfort the glow
that's dwindled into nothingness,
but he fell too far away & my light
went out--

'I want you to come back & be my
star in the dark' I whisper to the
field, that I painted cotton dresses with
grass stains in-- but he can't hear me.