"Candlefly"

The candlefly
always came at night
blinking the ceiling
with its small searchlight

as a child I stared up
uneasily through the darkness
remembering the old folk saying

Candlefly means
a stranger will come
a stramger will visit

still I couldn't be comforted
the candlefly was both a magic
and a menace

a creature with a mission

a flickering stranger
not unlike dead

Grace Nichols
(The Fat Black Woman's Poems)