the night lanterns

[ellajam]

Hi, I'm so glad you posted this, I've enjoyed it over and over. You've gotten some very useful crit that I agree can sharpen this but I'd like to say this is not prose to me. It works and hits its target well, for me.

the night lanterns

She’d started collecting fireflies,
their dried, lightless husks
filling up old mason jars; Fireflies, husks, jars: not prose, please edit around these and leave them be, IMO they work.
 
she refused to throw them out
even after they’d lost their glow. Yes.
 
I never knew Mama to be afraid of the dark
but she said so one day when I asked
why she kept them. It makes no sense to keep them to ward off the dark when they are used up. Yes, do not tell me this is not a poem.
 
The jars still sit on her windowsill,
clean and empty of husks, I am cleaning the jars through my tears.
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. Passed, answer, dark. yes.
 

I'm glad you've gotten such good suggestions on how to hone this, good luck with it, it is worth it.