The burner and the blackout crave you: pilot of heat, purveyor of the innocent candle and cigarette, light we tamed then fed to the night. Cupped, inviolate, a winter moth, a prayer we never sent away, you live in seconds what we name a life, a sudden cleansing. You Prometheus come as toothpick, the false fire lent to our fingertips, lightbulb of the lame idea: may your phosphorus forgive us, old flame.
Poem from Consolation Miracle, reprinted with permission of Southern Illinois University Press