Poetry

detail on fire dignity's past

dignity's past

my face in a bowl of soup, my ears 
above the chicken broth, my father 
laughing, a matzo ball against my eye.

mom brings extra napkins of cloth, rough 
from washing, rings them out over the sink
with the disposal running, just to be sure
                                               
I disappear from my own picture, my own 
memories drop down the apartment's incinerator:
the embouchure of my father burns with my own.
 
the embers resemble the dream we have forgotten, 
lightning striking a dry forest of children, buried 
up to their knees in dense earth, waving their limbs, 

crying while burning, trying to blow the flames 
away from their bodies, while the ones that love them 
blow on their wounds.

Detail on Fire

Creating fire in order to sweat without moving,
a hotdog on a stick, a book with all its pages open, two candled eyes
reflecting the titles of chapters across from two other eyes
that reveal portions of vignettes of the good old days ended,

the sudden detail between them quivers, from fright or excitement
like a voice: a pair of legs runs through a field of tall grass
on a day that shines with too much clarity, while beneath the ground
is neither light from the fire nor darkness from shadows yawning 
behind uncovered legs, there is maybe nothing but wax for the eyes,
to be applied behind the retinas, because life buries the loveliest 
the deepest, our heads sleep against match tips.