Pentimenti Fade

The West is slipping away. On the East side of this living space light slips its shadowy leash, paints a last frameless image upon a bare wall. Moving closer I study a shape as it shifts slightly while an unseen sun shoulders the earth again. If I squint it might be the face of a friend. I look for fever, the hollow-eyed recognition of death - no it’s not her death mask this is before the last breath arrived a momentary representation before her fade out. I had assumed it was light playing upon a surface but see that the East has leached out again, and it can cross the world and travel time arriving always before the impatient night.