Burning—the stars are burning.
Rows and rows of flame where we row
arrows were descending like hot petals of fire.
A muscle swells and the voice
speaks between curtains of blaze.
The fire is in the world
and every instant is its fuel.
Staring, standing, seeking
with star-studded pupils
one word is spoken: fire
fire that burns all the pinnacles,
the sacrifice, the holocaust of sacrificing
love, the historicity of the encounter.
Escape woman, hold on to my wings
as embers consumed in this climate
of fire.
The stars — are burning.
Like everything else
we’ve touched, sensed
and desired in the charred medium.
Even the lines of our silhouettes
are wriggling as coils of screeching oils.
Your lips will say it,
when a starving spark devours
those tiny lengths of brief candlewick,
your lips will say it
over and over again
until I will think of nothing else:

Burning—the stars are burning.

Contemporary Poetry