8.3 Minutes Too Far

 
When we look at the stars, what we see is
light that has taken years —sometimes billions— to grace
earth's face. We can look further back in time
than any rock will allow, by looking up.

Not the sun. It will warm us when it's gone for
a little while. Days without sun require fire. She was brief
and maybe thought I wouldn't freeze. Without even the smallest
flame something crawls closer to you. Something
uncontainable. Formless and mute. It can only be
black—blacker than an owl's pupil; a universe; nothing,
so I prepared a huge fire as I knew the sun
was around the corner, with its heat following.

Fire burned out the black; could only squint my eyes, but stared
nonetheless. Could feel the demon or soul, or whatever
retreat into the new shadows, and it wept as it saw me
walk the surface of a new sun.
Immediate light, heat; too warm to remember
the cold, or care
how I'd freeze up the old sun.