Candle for our youth

Kids picking off loose fingernails     in games of loves me loves me not

in wreaths woven from fallen out hair     instead of daisies and daffodils

parents kissing silicone on gas masks    instead of their children’s foreheads 

please make a drink potent enough      to wash down the exhaust in their lungs

and flush the plastic from their blood     revolt against the profiteers of decay

who bet against their future     wistfully you don’t notice the charred fumes

before the candle has burned down      and the wax has poured onto the table

where we wait for it to cool.