07-21-2015, 01:21 PM
the night lanterns
She’d started collecting fireflies,
their dried, lightless husks
filling up old mason jars;
she refused to throw them out
even after they’d lost their glow.
I never knew Mama to be afraid of the dark
but she said so one day when I asked
why she kept them.
The jars still sit on her windowsill,
clean and empty of husks,
a vanilla tea light candle inside each one now.
I’ve lit them every night since she passed;
people ask me why, but I don’t answer.
They don’t need to know that I’m afraid of the dark.
She’d started collecting fireflies,
their dried, lightless husks
filling up old mason jars;
she refused to throw them out
even after they’d lost their glow.
I never knew Mama to be afraid of the dark
but she said so one day when I asked
why she kept them.
The jars still sit on her windowsill,
clean and empty of husks,
a vanilla tea light candle inside each one now.
I’ve lit them every night since she passed;
people ask me why, but I don’t answer.
They don’t need to know that I’m afraid of the dark.