The Domestication of the Lamp

At first its glow was an eclipse
lost under the lids of sleep:
a thumbnail of light that wrinkled
into dust at the end of a long tunnel,
or that flared briefly like a match,
burning its image into wakefulness.

Those who thought they knew it best
carried it home high above their heads
like a miniature sun they’d caught, or
a gigantic firefly grotesquely kicking
its feet, beating its metallic wings.

It died a thousand deaths before
it drew down its shades and allowed
itself to be fed by a woman’s hand.
Those who know it, eye it wistfully,
hoping it will rise at last out of its
hunched sadness and be reborn,
its voice bursting through its bars.

*Maurya Simon is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including Ghost Orchid, which was nominated in 2004 for a National Book Award in Poetry. Her book of ekphrastic poems, WEAVERS, was published in 2006 by Blackbird Press, and another volume, The Mapmaker’s Art, will be issued this autumn by Red Hen Press. Simon is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in poetry, an Artist’s Residency at the American Academy in Rome, and an Indo-American Fulbright Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and lives in the Angeles National Forest in Southern California.