I remember the time we snuck up to the attic
in that old house where the barn party was held. It belonged to a friend of a friend. Everything smelled like patchouli, cigarettes, coffee, paint.
I didn't know anyone and I didn't know you either;
your little finger slipped inside mine while someone put on Live at the Filmore East
and you towed me inside to the damaged DNA spiral - only one half of the helix -
that climbed up through the double parlor
to the very top floor, where there was no light, and we climbed and you whispered, "I've got matches,"
lit one, and we saw hatboxes and trunks of every size.
You told me we could only choose one. So I touched the smallest I could find
before the match went out
and in the gloom we knelt and opened the box.
There were layers of old tissue paper, soft as excised skin
and we peeled them back, one layer at a time
And underneath the layers there was something long and unbroken
made of wax - a candle.
There was a candle in the box. That was the box I chose: a candle.
What was I - a birthday cake?
And perhaps you felt my disappointment in the dark, and you whispered,
so softly I could barely make it out,
so softly that it didn't pop our tiny new bubble,
"I've got matches."
