When You Wake Up

She liked colour. Maybe because she knew
colour was life and the absence of it could only be
the other. Like the word vacancy; if filled,
it disappears.

She often thought of miracles. As if
she could conjure one up simply by overcoming
a tragic moment with a deep sense of bliss. Later,
she realized, this act in itself, was the miracle.

Sometimes at night, she would hold out her hands
in the moonlight so her skin would glow like lantern paper
and little grey moths would crawl across her fingers
until the wind whisked them away.

No one knew her, really. She liked it that way.
Like a dream you can't recall when you wake up
or a feeling that makes you smile
but you don't remember why.