Glass Leaves

Someone once told me,
‘Life is brief as a whisper,
and twice as fragile.’

So I leaned close,
listening for the hush
between breaths,

held the weight of sunlight
like a glass leaf
poised to shatter,

and I wondered,
in the silence,
what echoes we leave,

the sighs we set loose
into wind,
the hands we touch,
gone before we feel them fade.

What fragile light
binds us here,
if only for a moment,
if only like a whisper.