of stolen light, to touch the rim
                of static before nakedness
                                is another closing

door. If pleasure cannot be asked
                but given into, why do I come here
                                if only to be unseen?

When we lived together,
                my sister returned
                                each night laced

in dregs of glitter
                to study after long shifts
                                of letting customers buy her

drinks, never telling them
                her real name. Now I understand
                                what keeps us whole

in the face of daylight
                after hours underground, how
                                it meets the eye

straight on like a woman
                kneeling to gather
                                what you needed

to give. My sister
                called herself Ruby,
                                blurring the space around her

like a myth. Or maybe the myth
                is snow falling outside
                                the club, her body

untouched by the precision
                of notes wincing
                                in her hair, an alarm

in the dusk, how I still need
                to imagine her lit with silence
                                before she rises

into another song, the color
                of light escaping a body, the blue-green eye
                                at the center of a flame.