Guest poet: Anne-Sophie Eizayaga

"Votive"

Votive

A honey-colored candle weeping wax
which hardens into beads: knots on a rope
flung from a tall tower’s
single window.

A candle cased in red glass, lit,
the tinted flame dancing on the wick.

Candles in a candelabra show
their white nakedness: the flames eat
from love-singed wick to molten toe.

Many little candles make four rows
and through their tinted cases, shed blue light
beneath a statue of Mary, blue-robed.
She longs to step down, pluck one, take a bite.

Anne-Sophie Eizayaga is a native of Saint Paul, MN who now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and cat. Her first chapbook, Benediction for a Naturalist, was published in January 2023.