Cameron Morse

Last night’s candle still sputters on the windowsill,

flecking glass. Its nubby little flame carves

a translucent cavern of wax, thinning out the encircling wall

with its waggle of shadow and light. It sinks

 

 

with the charred wrist of the wick to the watery brown floor

of wax that couldn’t resist. I roll over in the middle

of night to scratch out my dream in the undercarriage of my year-old’s

abandoned changing table, a makeshift nightstand,

 

 

Bili-bassinet. Afterwards my head caves in. I make funeral

arrangements, compile the playlist.

Late morning, I fling the snow-skinned lawn chair

into the snow-scabbed yard. I lift the lawn chair out of the shadow

 

of the house and fling it into sunlight. With one bounce

it’s shaken almost totally bare a place for me to sit in the sun.

Lowering my body into its lap, I notice only a ramshackle few ice crystals

on the right armrest. Which full sun sheds in a pile of tears,

 

 

a few globules of water. Sunlight and snow light form an infinite

loop around me, one feeding into the other

in the circuitry of my damaged brain, overloading my eyelids.

Remember this when you imagine your funeral

 

so long abiding in the memory of wife or son,

dying so very disgustingly young. Remember you have not lived

less than your survivors. You have lived more.