Season of skinny candles
By Marge Piercy
A row of tall skinny candles burns
quickly into the night
air, the shames raised
over the rest
for its hard work
Darkness rushes in
after the sun sinks
like a bright plug pulled.
Our eyes drown in night
thick as ink pudding
When even the moon
starves to a sliver
of quicksilver
the little candles poke
holes in the blackness.
A time to eat fat
and oil, a time to gamble
for pennies and gambol
around the table, a light
and easy holiday.
No disasters, no
repentance, just remember
and enjoy. The miracle
is really eight days
and nights without trouble.
*shames: the middle candle that lights the others every night
Marge Piercy, "Season of Skinny Candles" from The Crooked Inheritance. Copyright © 2006 by Marge Piercy. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: The Crooked Inheritance (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)