Afterimage

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Extinguished light--
as if it is what it was, and not
the figure on the driveway edged
out of the picture, satchel in hand.

It's always the woman waving goodbye, isn't it.

She looks for a strategy against loss
and although it's too dark to see
a hand in front of a face
she drags hope to where light is
a non-essential, where the image,
lost and recovered so many times, can burn
through, where knowledge sketched in shadow
holds sway like the belief that
it could never have been otherwise.