Strike Anywhere

The power dropped. I found the matchbook

in the junk drawer — cardboard soft

with age, some restaurant already lost.

I dragged the head across the strip

and the sound stopped me: that rasp

before the flare, the sulfur's sharp first gasp

of air, and I was back — her kitchen,

summer, window up, the ashtray full.

I was five, maybe six. The pull

of memory wasn't in the mind

but in the thumb, the index finger's pressure

on the matchstick. She would measure

nothing. Just hand me the box

and lean back in her chair and wait.

I'd scrape the head, the flame would hesitate

then catch, and she'd lean in — cheekbone

sharp beneath the flare, her whole

tired face lit from below, beautiful, the sole

light in the room for half a second

before the cigarette caught and the smoke

rose between us and neither of us spoke

because what was there to say?

I loved that chore. The sulfur and the heat,

the careful scrape, the privilege of the feat

of fire — small, useful, understood.

Last night I stood in my dark kitchen,

match burning toward my thumb, the thin

flame needling down. No cigarette.

No face to lean in. Just the smell

of phosphorus filling up the narrow well

of the room, and my hand

remembering a pressure it still knows.

I struck another. Watched it close

its eye. I struck another.

The whole book was almost spent

before I stopped. The kitchen smelled of where she went.