this house has been far out at sea all night

May god guard the ghostly ones,
the five-fingered fragment
that slipped in amongst us
and held my hand tonight:
sweet and disembodied,
warm and so inviting;
ever and only empty,
empty gesture and young,
younger even than such
uncalculated whim
should have a right to be.
Do not be born at night,
if they give you the choice:
start as you mean to go on,
believing, as we did,
you have the right to light.