USA

Lenrobertspoet@aol.com

Turning Off the
Christmas Window Candles

Last night I walked from room to room
to turn the Christmas window candles off,
sudden darkness then where our son
slept for twenty-one years, and
more of the same where our daughter
lived with three mirrors and books
until she married and moved on,
even the living room filled with
father-in-law who used to lift
two hundred-pound chunks
of wood at seventy-eight
onto the high lip of the pickup truck,
and older brother no longer weighing
his end of the flowered couch down,
the window candles casting that gold glow
that seemed to melt the glass
where it was reflected back,
each one a twist of the wrist, a snuff
with no breath, that quick warmth
on fingertips I'd wet and taste
a bit of burning flesh, the cells
searing off even as I shuffled
in slippers and pajamas from dark
to light and again to dark, once
looking into the shimmering pane
to see my face the way I'd see it
when I was a kid and held
a flashlight inside my mouth
in that old game to show the blood
flushed in nose, cheeks, chin,
luminescent skin-glowing skull
I stared at for a second
and then flicked off.

"Turning Off the Christmas Window Candles" in APR, 2001

© Copyright, Len Roberts.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.