To illuminate with lamp light in this
instance would be too loud:
you would see everything –
the hard-core ‘as-is’ of my orbit.
I want what the candle does:
wick-flicker whisper, glow glove,
fur shadow fuzz, a gold net
to catch only our faces, not
the worlds within them. I’ll look
less engraved. The flipped switch
is an antiseptic snitch next to
the pungent rip of this match struck.
I hold the match with its fire tip,
pass the fire onto the wick, invoke
the primal, defy the dark – I decline
to electrify my embrace of it.