Revisiting Movable Type: Issue no. 2 Featured Writer Stephen P. Kiernan
These Nights of Candles—Stephen P. Kiernan
Excerpt from ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19
The old man raises his cane
and fences with the swords of gladiolus.
He’s frenzied in the garden. The sun inches west
and on its last red edge
matches are being struck, lighters thumbed,
the candles begin
though some people are already asleep:
the postman, his fingers inked by commerce
and wordy romance, not one promise or plea
written to him; the early rising baker,
a bachelor till his last baguette;
the fisherman, whose wife stands at the window
staring at a sea that contains nothing
but her vague reflection on the glass.
And the butcher’s wife, reluctantly, lies down
for her heavy husband, and after a time
feels like meat pounded on the gristle.
The preacher sips red before a blank page
certain the sermon will appear whole
once he finds the first word,
while the silence of the house presses down.
Nearby the drunkard prepares his singing voice
and wonders who did this to his hands.
The old man is led to his room and left there.
These nights of candles,
these heartbreaks burned low,
are not the only kind. Somewhere, someone
is making a toast to ten friends, some man
is kissing a woman’s belly and she’s laughing.
A baby under blankets breathes
like the moon’s phases, like falling snow.
Some candles light a page or a window
or a church or a birth
or a friend’s or a lover’s face.
But tonight, like most nights,
when I cup my hand
behind the flame, when it highlights
every whorl and ridge and fortune teller’s line
and I breathe in,
I know I am about to lose you forever
again, and no kind of light can save me,
and I cannot help breathing out.
There’s a brief glow in the wick’s tip,
but then the smoke. The old man
sits a hard chair and remembers.
Down in the street a moonbright hound
howls and howls and howls
ABOUT STEPHEN P. KIERNAN
Bio: As a journalist and novelist, Stephen P. Kiernan has published nearly five million words. His newspaper work garnered dozens of awards — including the George Polk Award for medical reporting, the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, and the Freedom of Information Award from the Joseph Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida.
Stephen’s newest novel, POLLOCK’S LAST LOVER, will be out on May 19, 2026. His most recent novel is THE GLASS CHATEAU. He is also author of the novels UNIVERSE OF TWO, THE CURIOSITY (now in television series development), THE BAKER’S SECRET (a regional bestseller), and THE HUMMINGBIRD. He has written two nonfiction books, LAST RIGHTS and AUTHENTIC PATRIOTISM. His work has been translated into many languages and four alphabets.
Website: stephenpkiernan.com
Facebook: Stephen P. Kiernan
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