Light, that old word, worn bare by biblical
metaphor—it turns a poem to stone.
Knobbed cliché, light, and its cousin, white,
sewn in fringes to black-and-white Westerns
my father watched as a child. Silly fool,
to believe that good guys dressed in white,
to believe in men entirely good or bad.
But the world has taught him. But light. But white,
adjective with which my Mexican girlfriend
labels the selfishness common to uninformed
Northerners. Nevertheless, light! My hand
on her thigh, my pale neck draped
with her black curls. Being gay makes me less
white, she says. Less. In Anchorage they speak of light
like a famous acquaintance. In November the light
goes away, they say, or, Today I saw the sun. Miracle
and cruelty, the daylight so far north.
Generous, careless, ubiquitous—true celebrity.
Light. White. Blessing unto the blessed
in their houses with big windows. Waking
the not-so-blessed to labor or exposing
their progress home at the end of third shift. Yet,
light! Don’t you want it? Don’t you sit
in the sun and read on a February day?