Ode to Sending Light

Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad

It’s the impossibility of the well

wish that gives me pause

like, how do you even send light,

loop ribbons around shapeless glow

until contained and airtight,

the scale squinting zero point zero,

and how do you secure radiance

so it doesn’t seep in transit, trickle

from the corners into the open hands

of another and others,

and to even send it in the first place,

you must have access to a source,

like a sky or a god, authorized

to gift it as easily as day, not waiting

for a prayer or hope,

and what would it even do

if I were to receive it but puddle me

into droplets that rise and vanish,

and even the speed of its reach—

doesn’t it slow when compared

to your name that appears first,

across my phone like shimmer

surfacing the water

after months of nothing,

before this tired phrase, how quick

the stirring in that fraction

of a second, faster than light,

my neck angled

like a pedicel to my phone,

in the dark room

I read

your message