there will be surrender in the wake of arson, and the flame will waver differently to the breath of a dying hour. the night recognizes faces by their trembling, by their distance from heat. the air hums in circles of compulsion tiny orbits of want mistaken for fate. conversely, attraction is just proximity’s fatal misunderstanding. without illumination, desire has no outline; the dark swallows its own reflection. lamplight drips down windowpanes, the moth forgets the sap of the tree that bore the soil that bore the body forgets the lineage of dust. it forgets the light. offsetting yearning, therein lies exhaustion; glow against glow, a final symmetry between body and heat. the air stills; the wings ashen. somewhere, the night resumes as if nothing learned its lesson. what endures of desire is only its echo.