What I Cannot Mend

This morning
I carried the small cake
out to the back step,

the air already warm,
a bird moving through the oak
as if it had somewhere clear to go.

I lit the candle
and watched the thin flame
steady itself against the breeze.

There are things
that do not steady.

There are lives
that turn their faces away
and keep turning.

I have followed them
as far as I could—

through rooms of worry,
through the long corridor of if only,
through the names I gave to hope.

But the world does not open
because I ask it to.

The river keeps its own counsel.
The trees do not lean closer
to explain themselves.

I stood there
with the small, bright fire
and understood something plain:

love is not the hand
that can reach into another life
and set it right.

It is the light you keep
even when it does not answer.

So I said your name
once, quietly,

not to call you back
but to let it rest
where it has always been.

Then I bent
and breathed the flame away.

The smoke lifted,
untroubled,

and the morning
went on being morning.