It Wasn't Amber

It wasn’t amber. It was light pretending to be amber because the leafless purple branches said so— their shadows crosshatched the window, twenty-four panes of silence. Distant shoes whispered down a hallway. I turned my head, but the glow stayed where it was. The walls were shadow— blue, absorbing everything. A cart rattled past my door, metal on tile, a music I didn’t understand. Somewhere, a voice laughed and then quieted. The air smelled clean, like alcohol and cotton, and the ghost of a gesture that had been wiped away. I had no words for color, or luminescence, or even myself— or the warm bars of the crib, the press of the sheet, and the ache of something missing I couldn’t name. I watched the window’s dimming burn like a promise made to someone else and already being forgotten. Outside, a branch moved, but I didn’t know it meant wind.