Dead Woman's Candles. # 28

I have a box of a dead woman's candles on my nightstand. It was given to me in a gold Paul Masson champagne box, most likely where they have been stored for the past thirty years, perhaps the box was obtained as a wedding gift. There must be a couple dozen tapers all different colors, all burned at one time or another. It gets me to think, the brown candles probably lit for Thanksgiving dinner and then snuffed out and put back in the box. The red candles- Christmas, the light green perhaps someone's birthday or maybe a graduation. One by one they burned their glow into the faces around the table and one by one they were silenced and put back in the box

I have a box of a dead woman's candles on my nightstand. While I sleep they continue to breathe stacked neatly one on top of the other. The white candles now tawny with age, smudged with color from the heat of the summers or perhaps basement furnaces. This is what is left wishes in the wicks, fingerprints on the soft wax. They will slowly burn to disfigured stumps leaving only drips of what used to be.