I will
by the light
of my tinder soul
show you
the universe.
*
My hair’s in streamers
of scorching air.
My mother stands over me
brushing my mane,
trying to tame it.
The plait explodes,
sloughs off to darkness
in roils of flame
fed on oils
of abandon.
My face is the same
under the roaring,
unravelling skeins.
I’ve plenty of tallow,
will burn a long time.
*
His revenge was ironic:
us two in the car
doused down with petrol,
one flick of a lighter
and everything’s changed.
But his hate
brought us closer.
He gave us this,
deep in the sinews:
now that we share
the nerve ends’ scorching,
is a marriage,
this burning unbearable
but conjugal night.
*
His fierce bolt
keeps happening.
Even my veins
are made for his lightning.
I search for his volts
in stillness.
Soul’s bright kite
tugs on its string,
nudging for danger,
for ruinous strike.
*
After the light show
which, from afar
was spectacular,
comes the real burning.
If you care
for me, make it go deep,
right down to the core,
past seeming, past knowing,
past being me,
where it smelts down all metals,
creating an ore
which is light crushed to weight.
Irradiate
my absence with the final spark
that is my extinction.
Now create
that half-life of speeding
through the seeing dark.