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Song for the Widower

Eat the lamp that lights, I say,
yes, eat the lamp that lights.
So that everyone’s darkness is
mine, he said, so that everyone’s
darkness is yours.  So that no one
says anything and the face grows
dumb.  Nobody eating nothing.
There’s anything but love in the
room, until there’s anything but
love.  But we must have light
like we must have food, I say.
Light keeps us from going hungry.
You’re wrong, old man, he says,
all the light and all the love having
been already eaten, sucked out of
the room with its bed-caked floor 

and its ahistorical walls.  And then 

the poor man wakes up.  And he
begins to stretch and and he beg

ins to yawn.  It’s well before dawn

and on the table beside him lies
a plate upon which lies a slice of
some delicate cake, which, with
a forlorn fork he begins to eat.
And he chews at the pieces of
cake that are delicate with the
taste of, what?  Of nostalgia?
And swallows a piece or two,
thinking, recollecting, Down
the drain, down the drain,
well, that’s when memory
awakens at last and once
again.  Oh, how he’s ripped
apart and torn asunder, this
relapse of unbearable pain
with the wheel of memory’s
reignition.  It’s not yet dawn.
Why, why these blinding
lights with the curtains
all drawn?!  Eat all the 

lamps that light, he 

sings. Eat the light, 

and eat the love. 

We must suck all

the memories out.