Poem: Ash that isn’t blown!

By Arian Galdini

The wick bent a little.

A blackened wick, without light.

On its tip, gray ash held on, so fine it barely showed,

not scattered, but kept,

like silence.

Your hand moved toward the light that wasn’t there anymore.

Not to bring it back.

Not to make light a tool.

Light opens.

Then it fades.

Later, the screen lit up.

A sentence rose in you, quick, clean,

so clean it looked right.

Your finger hung above it.

One press.

Before you tapped,

you held.

The wick stayed there.

The ash did not rise.

One breath, it becomes smoke.

There are evils that arrive with noise.

You see them, and you flinch back.

But there are others that arrive clean,

with the cold reason of an exact word,

with the temptation of a justice without a heart.

They are more dangerous,

they don’t ask you to fall,

they ask you to stand,

cold in your fingers.

That night, you chose a different exactness.

The screen stays open.

The sentence stays in you.

And the air does not take from you one new wisp of smoke.

When they leave you outside, the temptation is to become a speck.

When they call you, the temptation is to become flame.

You had only the extinguished wick,

and a fistful of breath that could have become ash.

In the morning, the candle was still there.

The ash as well.

You didn’t touch it.

You left it on the tip.

And when everything quieted,

no victory left to tell.

Only the extinguished wick remained,

with its fine ash on the tip,

that did not become smoke.

You didn’t blow on it.

Arian Galdini