Fire Lyric, By Cynthia Zarin

Three flames

on a branched

candlestick

One is Wick,

another

Tender,

the third

Pitch. Pitch

is gone.

Wick and

Tender are

two steamship

vents. Then

each in Alice

blue, two

can-can

dancers.

Then ghosts.

Tender’s

out. Gold but

with a heart

of ash, Wick’s

an owl on

a matchstick.

Feathers

singe in that

harsh hiss.

Topaz flares

two times

in the pier

glass--third eye

to find her

sisters there.

From “Fire Lyric” by Cynthia Zarin. (Knopf: $19.) 1993 Reprinted by permission. Zarin lives in New York City, where she is a staff writer at the New Yorker.