Hug your candle…
A man I know, call him
Bill (I called him Bob),
Told me "it gets worse
As you get older," laughing,
After I apologized for
Calling him Bob (his name
Is Bill). I know his name is
Bill, but I called him Bob
Because my head was
Elsewhere (figuratively),
And he's a boss, and the
Big boss is Bob. I made
A point to apologize in
Person; or perhaps I just
Got lucky to think about
The misnomer of the day
Before,

While I passed his
Office. I explained why
I thought it'd happened, and
He said that he'd done the
Same thing to an Arab guy
Who has a similar name to
Another Arab guy. He felt
Bad, thinking that the Arab
Must have thought that
He thought they all looked
The same. I shared with him
That I had called Pervez
(a bigger boss than Bill, but
not as big as Bob) by Pranav.
Both Pervez and Pranav are
Indian, and I know them well
Enough, so I sympathized with
Bill, and hoped Pervez and
Pranav might be keen to the
Phonetic and syllabic
Similarities in their names
(Pranav works for Pervez)
That I'm sure sufficed for
My slip of the tongue.

P, uhr, vuh. 2 syllables.

I have not yet been lucky enough
To think of this while passing
Pervez, but I will make a point
To apologize. My head's simply
Not been with me (speaking
Figuratively, of course; in the sense
That my thoughts are often on things that
Don't concern my immediate exterior
Environment. I have been like this for
A few days now). Californians
First, but more and more Americans,
Have long been getting worried about
Being misunderstood (so much so, and
For long enough that a backlash has
Occurred, and many openly, if injudiciously,
Laugh - and that is sometimes refreshing,
When one is not flouting one's ignorance or
Inane hegemony -- at the pervasive environment of
Sensitivity [but not me; I wonder should
I make a point to Pervez that I called
Bill Bob?]).
So Bill comforted me by
Saying, "it gets worse as you get older."
Bill's got a good 18 years on me. I blurted,
"And I'm already slippin'!" and we had a
Laugh. It wasn't that witty. He's polite.
I've been like this for days,
All because
A girl told me to hug my candle...
It's
Eight inches wide, around ten pounds,
With 3 wicks, and it's orange, effusing
Autumn food scents (so get that dirty
little idea out of your head, you dirty
dirty dirty dirty dirty bird). I'd burned it,
ungoverned, for months. Usually while
smoking. Then I'd snuff it when I finished.
"these things are expensive," she said, hugging
it, her long, slim hands pushing the circumference
in over the light. "and if you don't hug it, it
won't last the hundred, maybe seventy, hours
it's supposed to." candlelight suffused with
orange on angelface, her hands pushing the wax,
cracking the wide cylinder at the one-third point.
"and you gotta burn it a looong time, too,
every time."
"but is that crack gonna ruin it?"
"no. that only happened cause you haven't been
hugging it."
"oh."
My candle. My light.
Hug it.
Call Pervez Pranav. Call Bill Bob. Hell,
Call Bob Pranav, or Pervez Bill. Fuck them,
I'm still with her.