When it gets dark, someone turns on the lights,

someone who lives alone

as the moon lives alone,

as the cloud that moves over rooftops,

holding back raindrops

and turning them into snowflake gifts

for the children below.

And the lights send a message

to the visitor at the end of the street:

Hi there, here’s light

to guide you to the door.

There is love behind this door,

a chance to begin again.

It’s easy,

just take one step

and the next.

Claudia Serea’s poems have appeared in Field, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She has published five poetry collections, most recently Twoxism (8^th House Publishing), and her sixth collection Writing on the Walls at Night is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press (2022). Serea co-hosts The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Readings, and she is a founding editor of National Translation Month.