I’ve had this mistress since the dawn of time – who wears a smoke-ruined perfume that leaves me a dizzy fool – Flowerage de Feu – the woman is damn near pyric
            daughter of heat – descended from lightning in a long bloodline of wildfires – as if there were any other kind
            the pine needles burst – the water boils – petals begin to cringe on the night of her birth storms rent the sky to pieces in lightshows that put aurora borealises to shame – lightning in jagged neon ribbons – so bright they blinded the witnesses – that lightning staff did strike a tumbleweed where she was born all of a blinding sudden – became a requirement of man
            I am ravenous for the writhing heat – a delicatessen blaze – trying out my red-hot tongue in the dark I have found myself in a fiery cahoots – aficionado – will need skin grafts soon
            sneaking out to collect wood at late hour – hoarding matchbooks – stoking every spark that I have chanced upon – nursing bright embers into their inevitable flame – playing my spark-flute – spending long forgotten hours mesmerized – kneeling at my bed of kindling and grasping embers like the rosary – to pray with burns – become a blistered initiate – caressing lit candlewicks
            I am all but considering quitting the poet’s trade pronto and becoming a full-time arsonist – to carry on Herostratus’ torch
            because most nights, admittedly, the flames dance even better than me
            so if she will have me, and she will have me, open your windows tonight and test the wind and then clamber down and smell the air for smoke – if there is, it is she and I alight and wrestling together this world without favorites and if the villagers come with pitchforks and asking for us you can just say it’s practice for a day to come when this would all just turn out to be another bad hot dream