Season of skinny candles

A row of tall skinny candles burns quickly into the night air, the shames raised over the rest for its hard work. Darkness rushes in after the sun sinks like a bright plug pulled. Our eyes drown in night thick as ink pudding. When even the moon starves to a sliver of quicksilver the little candles poke holes in the blackness. A time to eat fat and oil, a time to gamble for pennies and gambol *shames: the middle candle that lights the others every night