Day lost in a haze of strings
of words that I hope
make sense
The waning moon taunts me with its wayward
style, my hastily sparked fire has more in his eyes
than my petty tale.
Be a friend to gain
a friend, or a million
heartbreaks, a million stars shatter where your heart was
pricked. It reached too far in the wrong direction,
scars toward the ghost singing some tune
you could never quite learn
the harmony to
The fire will be–has always
been–my friend.
We have history, pits
dug in branding corral sand.
Oh, I loved the smell, wretched
as I am, fire
and I share more than the smell of freshly seared flesh
Prairies lost to its black mouth, nights
lost in fear, anticipation:
wet springs carried the hope of green grass, haunted us
with the threat of fall storms
Have you ever watched a fire start,
energy, where there was none?
Witnessed a new dimension of possibility open, pulled
your hat down and gazed up just in time to watch
the dark sky flash, the earth answer with insatiable blaze.
Have you fought the wind that escorts summer storms,
crested wheat grass bowing in prayer alongside
you, bashing flame with a shovel
or an old gunny sack dunked in a five-gallon bucket of water?
No matter how many showers you take that week,
your dreams still breathe smoke.
Wearily, we rode out the next morning to search for strays.
As we neared the burn edge, marking
that which had been made foreign,
hundreds of stripped acres,
the horses snorted, hesitated, refused.
Some new realm had been opened up,
a rupture in which we did not belong.
We were trespassing, and the singular crunch of singed
earth would mark the rhythm of that day.
The dark scar absorbed any words we wished to say,
hushed by the solemnity, the holiness of a new baptism.
Winter nights I searched
for you, brought my blanket,
my permanently shivering ten-year-old
body to the altar
of frosty basement cement,
tent that blanket over
the furnace, greedily
gulping whatever heat I could
But I’m still cold
The moon has moved
a little on its path, arcing right,
peering through the barely-
born leaves of the backyard tree.
The embers glow–
one lonely lick of flame
keeps burning.
