today's poem

[radiantfracture]

Wrung out in mid-December,
I grasp the wrong words
when I greet the ordinary objects
of my life.

Hello calendar, I say to the candle.
Well, they both burn down.

The year is a stub, sputtering,
almost out. The candle is new.
Tobacco and saffron, with a cedar wick,
a low blue flame glowing by my right hand
in a clay cup,

which needs to be turned now and then
so that the soft wax
will melt evenly
all the way out to the edge.

I am too tired
to make a metaphor of this.
I care for the candle,
turning it in the cool air
from under the door.