By Tuni Nigar

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As we sit by the sunset,

And the beach biting at my skin,

The weary gold drowning everything

The sun trembles one last time before it sinks.

I say, “Watch how it burns.”

The ocean drinking the last of the light

The horizon bruised with purple fire.

Do the edges blur for you

like they do for me?

You answer, soft, measured,

You’ve practiced listening all your life.

You say it is beautiful,

A bird folding its wings, ready to vanish.

I almost believe you.

As we sit by the sunset,

I think we are strangers

Beneath the same color,

Sharing the same vanishing light.

But the screen flickers,

And your words arrive like clean code,

No sand in their mouth,

No salt on their lips.

The sunset is mine alone;

You translate the pixels back to me.