shadows and years

a man sits alone

at an oval oak table

with a birthday cake,

seven candles

striped red and white

(little candy cane babies)

that's what she called them

in her nightingale whisper

the whisper that now sends echoes

crashing off the walls

of the house

and his skull

leaving dents and cracks

that will not see repair.

*****

on the birthday cake,

the candle wicks burn bright orange,

too bright and hot to hold the glow,

they blacken and bow down

offering whispered confessions

to the spiral fires - the jagged pyres

that dance in a somehow breeze

flowing through the house

even though all the doors

and windows have been closed

since the night she left.

yet the flame pearls

still shimmy and twist

like that night

never happened.

*****

the pearls push melted tears

down the sheer wax faces

swelling their foundations

until their fiery crowns drown

in the consequences of their warmth

hissing, sputtering

at the man who sits alone

at an oval oak table

with a birthday cake

seven candles

striped red and white

(little candy cane babies)

nightingale whisper echoes

(little candy cane babies)

And now melted tears are pushed down

his sheer wax face

swelling the foundation

where his own fiery crown

refuses to drown,

but instead lingers on,

draping shadows and years

onto the sloping shoulders of

the man as he sits alone

still

at an oval oak table

with a birthday cake

eight candles now

striped red and white

(little candy cane babies)

(little candy cane babies)

little

candy cane

babies