Candle

Bulbs shining from within, exactly nine windows.
Nine points of light, and I raise the candle to make ten.

Stars in the night
Souls in the deep

Each gleaming from a neighbor's apartment, near,
but not so near at all.
We'd have to descend and ascend to even touch.

Lashes droop and everything fades, blurs,
through slitted eyes, everything but those lights.
Images disintegrate.
Words multiply and divide.
Fractals of meaning. Apart. Ment.

Shafts between worlds, universes.

And from the same source stream the light and the shadow
All of us light and shadow
Dancing off of glass
flickering, skipping
somersaulting.

There, across the gulf, reflected in the pane, in the pane, in their pane, in their pain
Is my flame.


And everything just aches into one.