A Candle for

Keep looking, searching, peering in

That window with the candle

Close my eyes and feel the flame through the skin

The satin sheers and wooden rocking chair

Empty and open wax melting in the exhausted dusk

Night bursting like a speeder rushing from the police

To a foreign border always in the moment of the dance

Slip a foot like droplet pearls off the tongue

Into the haze of words I wish you were there to listen

Like the howl of a dog leashed and penned

Waiting to urinate till dawn to get the water out

Not on the garage floor but out in the grass

The yank, the pipes pressed flow for the horrible sunshine

To make the candle wash in uselessness

Wanting to be alone in that alcove with the flame

Smiling talking until morning ruins the whispers

Of bed sheets and scaled fevers

Knowing a body has to run the garden will wither

In this darkness attempting to be something other than it is

A place where others find habitat

You and me could talk for a while like geriatric bench folk

Knowing how sentences finish as the swirl of the beginning is so familiar

Like a man along the watchtower knowing the exact point

The invader will peak from the tree line

That if I ever knew you so well you would not come round

As my intuition would be like a weapon an inferno and the scorch

Would just destroy the memories of freedom and banter

Claw my eyes out like a terrible tale of what I never was

Never could be because I knew you too well

For comfort and that space to go running would always seem

Like you could be caught and you don’t want to be caught

So I peel away into the night and day darkness and lightness

Blending as if all this conversation were nothingness

Hoping you wanted substance someday, sometime to show me

Why and who you are or were on your terms

Knowing that candle sits in the window like a flame never lit before