The heart’s torch could kindle a thicket, cruising the ridge line after midnight, like a car with a broken headlight. I watch it seething beside a dark pond where a woman swims laps and emerges, picking up her beach towel and wrapping it tightly around her torso. It’s not eternal, but its oils burn so slowly and its rags are packed so thickly around its tip the flame can’t help gulping cool air. It wriggles and soars, a story below a set of drawn blinds. The neighbor who can’t sleep wonders if it’s meant for her. She sits at her window, sips tea, and watches until the torch slips away down the alley beyond shut garages, sputtering under the tinder of dangling branches.