Vigil

The power grid failed when the branch hit the wire,

leaving the apartment to sink into the black.

I struck a long match to start a small fire,

a jagged little light to hold the walls back.

It’s sitting on the saucer in the middle of the floor,

watching its own shadow grow tall on the paint.

A ghost of a person is leaning by the door,

flickering wide and then becoming quite faint.

The wick is a drowning man in a pool of clear heat,

sputtering once as the oxygen dies.

It’s a lonely performance, a quiet defeat,

that only the darkness is there to recognize.