i read the book

            by the phosphorescence
left by the light bulb
            and in time the light went out
it was enough to know 
            I was lying
            in the cold sheets
floating but not joyous
            not sad either
but continuing to see 
how each sentence kept on
imprinting itself in the dark

            what was present
            in the half light
            was a single word

            BIRD

            there 
            but not there as well
            and on either
side of that were all 
the past and present letters
and sentences and thoughts 
                        falling
            as if into a deep night
all that thinking going
                        until what was left 
            were single letters
me searching for each one
as the live wire in the globe
            hardened in my eyes 
            and finally went out.

---

Sam Morley is a poet published in various journals and shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. He received the 2022 Tina Kane Emergent Writer Award at the Mildura Writers Festival. His published collections include Earshot and You Do You.