The Collection of Struck Matches

What happens after the light

Matches are now an emergency

Of antiquity

Retracing the past

As the contours of clothes fall

At the edge of the bath.

The candles like conversations

From long ago

You  are past recollection

The combinations

The old motions, of  match against box

At first

Dragging the conscience, across the old ash

Shocks.

Light stands as a verb

Then

On the edge of the lips

A momentary frustration

Will not light, will not work

And the water there like a judgement.

Monitoring the moves

As your body slips.

The gas lighter

Seemed too direct, too determined

For your thirst

Deep in the pit of your stomach

.

You were waiting in your touch

For the fall of the mask

The release of flame.

You  yearned for that moment

To leave name and agenda

And watch fire from the friction

Society  shames our retreat from

Into personal space.

There on the windowsill

You stack the struck matches

Worthless to electric expectations

But there in the dark

They speak of removal

Punctuating the pile of clothes

With their upside exclamation

Still tipped with the tincture

Of the lone human heart.