By Emma Keun
Once she wept
For candles
For fat bodies, melting
As cream, curdling
Into thick, sticky rivulets
At the nadir of a lurid glass
Gummy, sooty smears
Only earning purpose and admiration
When aflame,
With inevitable destruction;
Fragrance fading
To nothingness
As snowdrops before a lily
As forget-me-nots lost in the long grass
As edelweiss iced in crevices, swollen
With snow and beautiful, yet
Scent stolen by sharp, silver frost
Petals, brittle
As burnt-out wicks
Crumbling into blackness –
How bright, the speeding train