Untitled ("I am in the dark and I have left")

A candlelit interior poem where solitude, craft, and small acts of care become a private ritual of control.

A small ritual poem of candle-tending in the dark, where the speaker leaves 'the one perfect candel' she was 'making the flame streight / or croeking it' and moves 'to the dark of the desk.' She handles the fire intimately - 'I pokd the woek,' 'I cuddled the fire glass' - finds 'there is not a burn,' and finally releases it: 'Let the candle go... The wax will find it's way / off the sheave.'

The whole poem is a study in controlling a single small flame and then deciding to stop controlling it. The verbs are tactile and homemade - straightening or 'croeking' (crooking) the flame, poking the wick ('woek'), cuddling the hot glass - and the aside 'I like that / I bet you do too' lets a flicker of intimacy into what is otherwise a solitary act, as if the reader were leaning in to watch. The discovery 'there is not a burn' on the hand is a quiet relief, the body unharmed by the fire it has been tending. Then the turn to surrender: 'How wonderful / Let the candle go,' backed by the reassurance 'I have wood under the fit' (fire/hearth) and faith that the wax 'will find it's way / off the sheave.' It is a poem about earned permission to let something burn down on its own, the craft of attention finally relaxing into trust. The misspellings ('candel,' 'streight,' 'croeking,' 'pokd,' 'woek,' 'sheave') are the source's and carry the handmade, phonetic texture of the voice; I have preserved them.