The Lamplighters

by Emma Stonex

You could peel a hole in the sky and stick your finger through, to touch whatever’s behind. It would feel soft and needing.

the room was humming harder as the ceiling flew away.

Do you remember walking over the fallow field? I held your hand, soft and damp. We watched the swallows dive and soar. Sunset light. I loved you.

It was crusted in the stars and molten in the water; the dancing fire at dusk and the instant at dawn when he pinched the wick to black.