An ancient desire to be led by thread or breadcrumbs or

stars takes me link by glowing link through something

like darkness to one person

who may be bullheaded, a witch, a disaster, or

unaccountable, but neither random nor determined, and

in reality

of course just traces of someone, an image emerging from

ether, from four billion virtual hues, each with its own

precise charge.

Such precision. The image illuminated like every other—a

profile spun out with filaments of words—becoming a

second person.

I picture you crouched over star-glow of telephone as you

offer your location up. Me, in the same position, back at

you.

I can account for all illumination leading from my door to

yours—car-light, streetlight, moonlight, steeple sheathed

in incandescence,

glitter of stained-glass saints backlit, CCTV screens in your

lobby, caged light bulbs in the hallways,

elevator light droning like a trapped fly, the peephole

glinting, offering

a hint of labyrinth's end, your interior.  Nothing will appear

beyond the angstrom range of the human eye.

Not in a world where the galaxies of deep space are just

motifs for screen-savers.