after Jim Jarmusch
Lighting, perhaps, the cigarette
of the woman you love for the first time –

still carrying matches,
for their smell, the way they suck
the air in that first second.

Lighting, perhaps, a mosquito coil, the single candle
on a birthday cupcake: late summer,
the cold kitchen floor.

Lighting, perhaps,
the letter you’ll never send,
the tender skin inside
your wrist,

a gas oven
with a broken pilot,
nothing to steer yourself by. Nothing,
lighting nothing,

but holding the dead head,
black and brittle
in your hand.

Read the rest of Overland 229

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