Candle

The laying on of hands achieves
A mercy. It is the pale eyes
That float through dreams,
The dallying glow that lights
The pane and crawls across the frame.

Through the window distance shines.
One thinks of all the voices laughing
And the chattering of bugs,
Of certain strange hands plucking
At an idle hair or playing on the milk
Of skin. Love flows in milky folds

And stirs the thought up like a moth
Whose wings will patter at the glass;
The sill is opened; it flutters in
The glow -- and dances like a laugh.