One Candle Burned
Only one candle burned
on the window pane,
the slow mist outside
became driven rain,
her pretty face was already
hard with death,
and the air around her
use to be breath,
bone white rosary beads
gleamed around her wrist,
and down the side of her nakedness,
a young woman, so innocent,
and before she died she was
probably staring at a picture
of the Virgin Mary
and the Christ child that was hanging
on her living room wall,
she was waiting for the heavens to call,
life for death she was trading,
and the foggy window
you could see the sign of the cross,
fading,
her clothes left at the foot of the stairs,
all her worries were gone,
no more fears,
no more tears,
her right hand was still a fist,
and the blood had dried,
at the cuts near the wrist,
only one candle burned
on the window pane,
a delicate light,
that stained the night.
© 2012 Frank Atanacio