Birthday Without a Candle

Birthday Without Candle

You dissolved into the needle’s mouth,

a silence that swallowed your name.

Yet when I walk among the animals,

I hear you—

in the scrape of hoof against stone,

in the restless wings of a crow

circling a field that does not forget.

The marrow inside me

is a record of your ruin,

and of your strength.

I know you in the grit

that refuses to leave my bones,

in the stubborn fire

that will not die though you did.

No cake, no song.

Only the whisper of soil shifting,

the breath of beasts in the dark,

and my voice saying—

happy birthday—

to the ghost I carry

like a second skeleton within my own.