Tom Painting

Votive

We can’t continue meeting like this at a corner table in a dark café – in my old hometown where I come to visit my aged mother twice a year – rekindling the past into present tense expectations. Forty years is a long time to keep from being forgotten. And so, when the waitress happens by and asks if everything is all right, I’m not quite sure how to answer.

first light
a cooled drip
of candle