The Edge of Dusk

The summer dusk was velvet on the street,

The asphalt cooling beneath naked feet.

The streetlamps flickered, catching on their wires,

As daylight faded, banking quiet fires.

I ran like a pirate seeking hidden gold,

Chasing the flashes that the dark unrolled.

A sudden blink, a cupping of the hands,

A tiny lantern in the summer lands.

I trapped the lightning, held it in my glass,

And watched the glowing constellations pass.

Behind me, on the porch, the adults talked,

Their quiet laughter as the shadows walked.

They were the anchor and the boundary line,

A safe horizon in the fading shine.

I thought the yard was all we’d ever need,

With fireflies in jars and wishes to be freed.

But glass is thin, and magic needs to breathe,

And even stars get tired, I believe.

I watched the blinking slow, the lanterns die,

A sudden emptiness in my eye.

I unscrewed lids and let the night take back

The glowing ghosts along the gravel track.

And standing there, I felt a quiet ache

The kind that only wakes when hearts can break.

The realization, settling like dew:

The light I held so tight was slipping through.

I do not chase the beetles anymore,

But I still chase the magic of that door.

That edge of dusk where I was small and whole,

Before the world demanded my whole soul.

We all hold jars of light from long ago,

And watch them dim as we are taught to grow.

But sometimes, in the quiet of the dark,

When all the noise has left its heavy mark,

I close my eyes and look so hard, I see

A blinking light, returning back to me.

A tiny flash across the restless years,

Reminding me the magic perseveres.

It’s waiting there, just past the porch light’s glow,

For the child I was, to let it go.