Eclipsed

At first, the morning speaks my name,
a cup of sunlight filled my hands,
soft laughter through the house,
and all my days were blessed like prayer.

I thought love was weather:
it would come, it would stay,
a bright plain that never learned
of the taste of shadows.

But then you smiled,
not loud, not sudden, but
like a curtain eased aside
so quietly I mistook it for calm.

You spoke in careful kindness,
the kind that never asks for room,
the kind that wears my husband’s silence
as if it had always been yours.

And he, my steadfastness, my yes,
unlocked the heart I believed was mine,
and placed the key into your hands
as if it were nothing. 

He left me by degrees, as light leaves.
A word that changed its warmth, 
a glance aimed elsewhere, a night that
grew unfamiliar around the edges.

I watched the light fade in increments, 
as dusk gently yields to darkness. 
You opened a door and he walked through it,
taking our history with him, as if it were his.

It was then that I learned what an eclipse
truly is: not darkness arriving, but brightness 
being stolen while you stand there in the
certainty of returning light.

And I am left here in the corona,
half-blinded, half-brave, knowing this:
happiness wanes and thins and disappears,
like the sun's warmth behind a passing cloud.

There is one truth in a bruise-coloured sky:
the light can vanish without leaving,
the earth can turn through darkness, and still,
beyond the shadow, a new morning awaits. 
 

Image free to use by Dola