Premonition

by Amorak Huey

My husband gave me one of those $25 jar candles for my birthday — grapefruit, notes of vetiver. It was called Premonition, which seemed (until much later) like one of those nonsensical marketing kind of product names. We had our usual flavor of sex with it burning that first night then I moved it to the top of my dresser and left it to gather dust next to the spare change. 

The next time I lit the candle, more than a year later, my husband was out of town and I was thinking about using my vibrator. I wondered: Do candles have an expiration date? 

As soon as I touched match to wick, the bedroom smelled immediately, overpoweringly of wet dirt and loneliness. By the time I blew the candle out, my phone was already buzzing, and though I didn’t know it yet, a stranger on the other end of the call was clearing what felt like wax from his throat so as not to stumble over the news rising sourly to his distant lips.

Amorak Huey is author of four books of poems including Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021). Co-founder with Han VanderHart of River River Books, Huey teaches at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.