Her voice rasped like a struck match 
from crying out her wares: 
Oil! Get your oil here! Don’t run 
out. She spent her days like a candle
burned at both ends, her core alight 
with the vision of a strip of lamplight 
creeping from beneath heavy doors 
to touch the hem of her garment 
and set her soul on fire

The parable of the “wise and foolish virgins” speaks to my anxiety: running out, being left out, being shut out, looking foolish. The thing is, though, that I don’t believe that the good shepherd who spends nights on the mountainside looking for a single lost sheep will leave me hanging. So I don’t know whether this poem is written by one of the women left out or one who was welcomed in and knows how fortunate she is.