The clothes still hang
gold as marigolds,
gold as a festival
that dressed itself
but had nowhere to go.
Hope was pressed into their folds,
left to sway
in a house grown quiet
cobwebs in corners,
vessels remembering
feasts that never came.
A notice on the floor whispers:
stay inside,
Stay safe,
stay.
And so they did.
Yet the gold remains
a lamp still lit,
a pattern still drawn
in a courtyard of one.
Because a festival
is not a crowd.
It is the holding on
the quiet choosing
not to let go.
For every home that celebrated alone
and called it enough.
