Wish Lantern by Nathan Evans
A spark, a click:
I lift flame to fuel package,
Careful not to singe your fingers
Or the paper folded there,
For a minute, maybe more,
Until the Clipper is overheating,
And my thumb is complaining
‘It’s not working.’
You frown and look around
To see others, in other colours,
Tumescing and rising.
‘Maybe ours is broken?’
But already it’s filling -
With hopes, with doubts, with fears
(and other hot air) -
For the new born year.
I offer the lighter respite
And slip it in my pocket,
Suck my thumb,
Red as our lamp,
Forming now before us,
Fanned by flames which burn unassisted,
Until -
In what seems like no time at all -
It’s tugging at our hands,
As full of itself
As an overheated adolescent.
‘Shall we release it?’
Your eyes are blue-green
And shining with reflected conflagrations,
And I can’t quite completely meet them
As our hopes and doubts and fears jostle in between.
And then together we let go of them.
And they rise, illuminated, into the night’s inky canvas,
And even I am overcome for a moment
With the sheer exhilaration of it.
But then disaster strikes
And we don’t know whether to cry or laugh
As our first born struggles for life
Against the captive branch
And, unable to assist,
Forget ourselves another minute
In cajoling and fretting
That the whole thing’ll go up in flames
Until, alone, it wins its freedom.
And is again rising.
And, earthbound, we celebrate
It’s wayward ascent.
‘Do you think it’ll reach the stars?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ but I’ll have to take you on trust,
Because our light has disappeared now
Behind the London rooftops.
Comments
There are no comments for this entry yet.