Light is a candle flame’s balanced opposite blue
In the center of the orange and yellow, blown from
The top of a birthday cake until the snaking smoke
Blends together. All those opposites have aged me.
My party hat carries the sound of the ocean where dusk,
My face, looks up at me from the floor, a pile of candles
Transforming into a forest of wax trees.
A landing strip,
Cracked open by electric syllables, accommodates
A return trip. The onboard film boasted of doors
Made from the bones of dead days. My birthday forest
Is littered with them. Frosting smeared on boulders from
Drunken stumblers. Three celebrations since 1991.
Every seven years. First form, via Winter Solstice Night,
Then content by way of its next morning.
And now a lake, surrounded by cattails and tall grass,
Catching the distant light of the shadows of wings, as the pain
Of evolution moves from thumbs to shoulders, and finally
To where life isn’t consumed but is preserved.
