Candles is back in town. Wants to know if you'll blow him.

The first card received in the mail was a dud.
There was no return address on the envelope
let alone a check
and the eight to twelve names
suggesting various ethnicities threw me off.
I flipped it over and noticed the logo
of my insurance agency on the back.
Great-- the people whom I pay monthly in case
I'm robbed, my truck crashes, or I die
are checking in to wish me a happy birthday
or maybe just to see if I'm still ticking.
Those payments come from somewhere.
That's all that matters to them.

My uncle Ray was the first person I actually know
to call and send his best, though his victory
wasn't flawless: he was a day early. The heartfelt
out-of-tune song that shall here remain nameless
for fear of a lawsuit from the estate of Michael Jackson
(that's right, he bought the copyright) was enough
to make up for his error. Besides, it's not his biggest blunder.
He did fifteen years for a heinous crime forty years ago.
I didn't know about it until he let the cat out of the bag
during one of our many fishing excursions when I was a kid.
It didn't change anything in terms of how I saw him.
He liked that. So did I. We dumped the extra worms
and got back in his beat-up silver sedan.
I'd like to say I'd care just as little today, but I might be lying.
I'm not sure how affectedly I measure men anymore.

And then there was the liquor store fiasco.
The middle-aged woman who carded me at the check-out
congratulated my twenty-sixth year of survival
noting that it was the same date as her brother's.
I reminded her to call him after work.
She said that'd be difficult since he'd
been dead for four years. "Well, celebrate anyway,"
I replied, shaking my head at myself
as I ran for the solitary safety of the parking lot.
"See," I mumbled to the upturned collar of my jacket.
"Keep it to yourself next time."