Candles

The sudden shock of the dark

turns us both into strangers.

I feel its weight upon me

in the hand unwrapping my thigh

like a soft gift. Somewhere

the clouds have howled shut,

trapped a whole moon between them

like these smoke-haloes, wax rings

bound to my body from memory.

Ghost-candles burn you to verse.

It is like this, remembering

blank inches of cigarette trapped

between laughter, blowing blue words

on wet pavements,  rain-mizzle;

a drunk chandelier of stars

where later the sick-swinging glow

of a lightbulb shatters,

melting our shapes. It is like this,

remembering—

the sweltering wax of two candles
tipping, our glittering stalactite limbs
a knot of Pompeian stone.

The flickering breath of monoxides.

When the dark staggers in I will kill it—

remember with struck little matches.

Smoke-stalks and shadows like inkwells.

The candles crack open like blooms.