the waiter balances light in his hands, the coins
in his pocket silver, and a young bell shines
in its white tower ready to tell.
Even a saucer of rain in a garden at evening
speaks to the eye. Like the little fires
from allotments, undressing in veils of mauve smoke
as you walk home under the muted lamps,
perplexed. The way the shy stars go stuttering on.
And at midnight, a candle next to the wine
slurs its soft wax, flatters. Shadows
circle the table. The way all faces blur
to dream of themselves held in the eyes.
The flare of another match. The way everything dies.
The final line is gloomy. The briefest and frailest light of all is just the “flare of another match”. The language this conveys is pessimistic — transience and the ubiquity of death. 
 So Duffy ends with two brief, balanced sentences. The complexity of the poem and its ideas is resolved in the unequivocal, unambiguous final line.
The Grammar of Light