for Paula
On your birthday,
I light a candle in my kitchen.
There is no cake, no singing,
no balloons, no streamers,
but there is love
and there is this small light
that no one will blow out.
It will burn all night,
this little flame that celebrates
the enormity of your life—
you, more sun than candlelight.
you, more blaze than glimmer.
Even thousands of miles away,
I feel your warmth—since we met,
it’s never left me.
I see the world with that light.