ALEXANDRIA QUARTERLY

PATRICK MEIGHAN

A LYRIC

At the end of love                                                                     
Rain
At the end of rain
A life ends

Through latticework the moon’s
Fingers reach
Downward to rain

A branch dips its fingers into the night
The moist canvas darkens shade
By shade

As a figure of a man dissolves
Into rain
At the end of the rain a candle
Flame

I stare into the flame
And divine
The figure of a woman dancing

A woman in flames/the flame is
The woman
The wind that moves the flame
The dance

Seduced by the image in the flames
(at the end of the night: rain)

Fingertips burned by candle flame
At the tip of the flame
Night

Patrick Meighan lives the life of a nomadic adjunct, teaching composition, poetry, literature, and journalism courses at several four-year and two-year colleges in New Hampshire. His newest chapbook "Poems for a Winter Afternoon" will be published later in 2018 by Unsolicited Press. He earned his MFA in poetry from the low-residency program at New England College.