Snake

The rope is knotted in the corner. Dust on the earthen floor. It’s been there since the beginning, since that first house was built, since the first man was made out of spit and semen.

The walls are crumbling around me now, the cracks are growing wider and deeper, dying so slowly. I’ll stay here forever before they turn to sand and memory.

My eyes play tricks on me as the candles dance back and forth.  Yellow and gold scenes emerge from the walls, heroes and monsters are born and fade on the flat surface as the wind bursts though the open windows. The night air smells of sweetness, of smoke and old knowledge.

That rope, I watch as it changes shape.  A snake moves towards me, ready to kiss or bite. I cannot tell.  It slides over my ankles, crawling slowly up my soot covered legs. I see it grow, I see it expand wider and wider, forming hips and breast, scales becoming dewy skin and fine hair.  She is silvery, iridescent like clouds below the moon. She moves. Her chest, feet, hands, all match the rhythm coming from outside.

They are chanting by the fire, around our old tree on the other side of the river.  I can hear them, I can imagine them in the shadow of the mountain as if I was there among them. But I am here, on this simple mattress, among epic battles that never end.

She moves her head towards me. She becomes something more than physical. More than the force of all men, all systems I’ve ever understood or heard of. She takes over my body. I search for descriptions, for the limit, the very edge. I follow, communicating only with my eyes. I watch her breasts rise and fall, then search her eyes for the center.

She will not let me return to the physical, not yet. Not while my body is free. I place my mind in her hands, let her wet hands dissolve my lies.  She takes me up the mountain, one single being in free eager flight.

It Was Like A Door

This is the word.
Wow- yeah,
It was like a door.
The word.
I was born.
And on the other side, where I exit,
It’s about being a good girl or a bad girl.
I felt like I could not go back.
It is this sharp light,
like when the sky is very clear and blue and it's noon.
There is so much beauty.
And bliss, bliss and fear, both. 
It was impossible to go back.
It’s the in-between, between ocean and land.
Now this time seems to be a time where things appear in a clear light.
I like to walk there.
Like a door,
she said: ‘you are most welcome to stay and be with us.’
At noon the shadows are very small
On the firm earth, feeling the water touching my feet.
There is wind, birds, and the sun.
Wow- yeah,
this ritual had been made for me.
It is land and it is water.
It is wind and it is fire,
come together right at my feet,
and it is possible.
It is good to walk there.
A door.
This is the word
Very light and very dark.
There are many possibilities.
I had been born
And I am still feeling very much alive now.

Howl

Wolf, she swallows a small chunk of blackened meat left in the fire’s ashes.  There are small embers aglow beneath a blanket of gray and black and a tiny mountain of white flecks light as snow. 
She looks up as the first of the pack begins to howl. It begins with an itch on the consciousness of one and then instinctively they are called to join, a reflex that snaps with the first yip.  She turns her head up to the sky and lets out a long, high-pitched call.
The night above is dark blue with an undertone of brightness that seems to hold promise in its colored grasp.  The sky is alive, not yet awakened by stars, but aware and vibrant and glowing with a richness that washes over the landscape like a heavy rain, bringing a softness with it that echoes the cacophony of the pack. 
Her mouth is open and her eyes are closed. All her concentration, the very breath moving through her, the essential quality of her nature comes out in that long extended howl. 
The pack of twelve send their signal to the moon, which is not yet present above the thick line of pine trees.  They call to others like them divided by swaths of jagged mountains and forests so dense and moist that sunlight has given up its desire to penetrate the lush darkness. The pack sings out in a momentary unison of collective song.
Perhaps the wind will take their unbridled spirits and push it up and over to the other side of the living mountains, across the sea and mermaid bones, over to the deserts and ranges unfamiliar to wolves, where the people there have never heard the call or seen the craned necks and mouths reaching to the twilight sky.
This is when the circles begin, the moon has risen and its white glowing light resonates in their throats.  The wind becomes rain. Water and fire turn to earth. Stone warms its face against the fallen sun and the howling continues. 
Their eyes are squinted shut, their heads upturned to the deep blue approaching night.  The first of the stars has begun to sparkle low in the sky.
Their sound creates the anvil of construction. Used to create and forge, to fuse light and melt forever with the burning flames high up above.

Poem Of The Dragon

We were all sitting around in a circle in the living room when the doorbell rang.  Bright and clear.  Like Isabel’s voice on green hills. It rang again as I day dreamed. I jolted awake, eager to see what lay on the other side.
Standing illuminated in the glow from our weak porch light was a green dragon. He was not the giant lizard of old fairy tales, larger than ten buildings, but he was taller, thicker, and more scaly than me. Standing at least seven feet tall, I craned my neck backwards, feeling the back of my head touch my back as I stared up at him. I could see my own stunned reflection staring back at me in his glassy eyes. 
I thought that I detected green and scales, smelt burning embers that somehow reminded me of clean wind just above the clouds, but I was most entranced by these smooth yellow eyes.  I sunk into them, for as I said, I could see myself as he saw me, a nervous woman stunned by a creature she had only read about, but I could also see my form as the world he came from would see me.
I was blue and purple, a nebulous shape that was held together only by the tiniest strings, like blowing scarves stuck to a clothesline in spring.  In his world, my flesh had already fallen, my colors were already singing. 
Seeing the mixture of confusion and wonder in my eyes, sensing that perhaps the neighbors would begin to feel that something was amiss, somehow telepathically as nosy neighbors can, he cleared his throat and a few fiery embers escaped his jaws as he opened his mouth.
I shifted attention from his eyes to the tiny bits of flame that rose into the night like orange fairies. 
“Excuse me for that.  I am here for the writer’s meeting.  I am Maurice.  I brought some of my work.  I hope I am not to late.”
For a moment my mouth would not move, I must have lost control as I voyaged into his world. Coming back into mine, I could feel my tongue was stuck somewhere behind my teeth. Pursing my mouth together, I found the little bit of moisture that remained. 
The underlying sweetness of his voice echoed between us, as clear and bright as the doorbell had been.  Like Isabel’s voice on a green hillside. 
We met eyes once again, “Oh yes, come in,” I managed to say, using my best hostess voice.  Opening the door wider and stepping aside, he crossed the threshold, forever entering our tiny world within a world. 
As he passed, coming from the night into the daylight we created, I looked down at his hands, where hands would have been if he were human.  What he had were scaly green arms that ended in long yellowish-white claws that doubled as hands. Using both claws he held onto a thin manila folder, the kind used in offices around the world, which I assumed contained his written words.
It was only a few steps from the door to the living room.  As I followed his thin trail of smoky air, I saw the stunned looks waiting in their chairs, looking the same as I must have.
“This is Maurice,” I announced.  “He’s a writer here for the meeting.” 
Several people nodded obediently, taking the information in, the lifelong schooling in American social politeness not failing them yet. 
“Maurice, I’m going to get another chair from the kitchen for you.” 
Stepping away I could hear the awkward silence beginning, though just as that void opened, it was filled with the steady voice of Chester, perfectly timed to avoid any crash in energy.
“What do you write Maurice?”
“Mostly poetry.  I just started writing really.”
“That’s ok. Everyone is welcome here.”
I walked back into the room with a slightly worn metal folding chair in my hands, seeing polite nods from the gathered writers as the encouraging statement reverberated around the room. 
“Here’s a chair for you.  Let’s kind of... rearrange the chairs so there’s still a clear circle.” 
We took a moment to do this.
I could feel slight tension in the room, more palpable than just the usual bit of nerves that seemed to accompany all the writers that came to our house.  Jen slipped me a nervous look, her eyes were questioning, perhaps looking at me like I understood something that she didn’t, wondering, most likely, what a dragon was doing in our house.  I had no answer, I looked away.
Chester began:
“Ok, thanks for coming everyone.  For those of you that haven’t been here before, we take turns reading our work, or someone else can read it for you if you like.  Afterwards, we discuss it.  When you make a comment, try to give your impression and reactions. Talk about the way it made you feel or if there were any parts that were confusing. In general, try to avoid saying if it was good or not. Stick to how it made you feel.  Ok Jen, do you want to go first?”
“Sure.  This is the second half of the story I read last week.”
She looked down at her lap, to the story that was already sitting there on neatly typed pages, and began to read. Her words went into me.  The same flowing, evocatively descriptive work I was used to. 
Interested in reactions, I looked around the room.  Maurice sat with his eyes closed. The scales between his eyes were ruffled as though listening intently.  Small bursts of steam shot out from his nose in intervals, growing more steady and thick as the tension in her story mounted. 
I looked up and noticed Scott was not watching Jen reading either. His attention was on Maurice, watching his recurring bouts of steam and hiss, entranced as I was. Scott’s eyes were wider than usual as he watched steam evaporate delicately into the middle of the room. Looking up suddenly he caught me watching him, his eyes full of questions. I was as surprised as he was.
When Jen was done reading, I snapped back into writer’s meeting mode, listening as each person gave their reactions.  We went around the circle, taking turns.  Maurice opened his mouth to speak and more orange embers escaped.
“I felt like crying when the baby was drowned by the crashing waves.  It was beautifully described.  I could really feel the emotional pain.” 
There were nods from those around the circle. 
Chester went next, reading in his barely accented voice the short story of one sunny afternoon in his childhood.  Maurice did not close his eyes this time, he stared at Chester, his yellow eyes growing wider as the dialogue unfolded like a sweet smelling flower.  Smoldering smoke came from his ears, slithering up into the air in quiet movement.  Jen coughed, reacting to the extra smoke in the room.  Chester coughed every once in a while, giving Maurice a curious look every time he did so.
When it was Maurice’s turn, all eyes turned towards him. 
“Ok, this is a short poem I wrote a few months ago. I have it memorized.” 
There were nods all around the room.  I felt my heart begin to pound as he readied himself, that uncomfortable feeling in my chest when the energy has mounted and soon we will be at the cliff’s edge.
He closed his eyes, his wide bulging lids seemed to be made of a thin green skin, though I thought I could detect the yellow of his eyes glowing beneath them like little lamps. 
The room was quiet.  The skin around his mouth began to move, twitching as though out of his control.  It went on like this for half a minute and we exchanged nervous glances, for we were not used to silence among us. 
Then the scaly skin on his nose began to twitch as well, joining he erratic bursts of his closed mouth.  A grumble came from deep within him, somewhere in his gut, though it sounded like a call from another world.  He opened his mouth and several deep and extended syllables emerged, through none of them sounded like the English he had spoken to us all night. 
I craned by neck towards him, hoping the gesture would bring me closer to understanding. Just as I did, I was met by a wall of pure fire.  I could smell singed carpet, I saw the black spots of melted nylon. 
I looked at Sophie who sat across from Maurice, her long blond hair now singed to the ears.  Maurice opened his eyes. One final burst of steam rose from his ears. 
He looked around the room.
“The fire comes out involuntarily when I get into a sort of trance state.  I am so sorry.”
“No. No,” said Mike, “I could see that you were really into it.  Must be very emotional work. I have to say though, I didn’t really understand it.”
“Yes, it is not really meant to be understood, just shared.  Perhaps you know what I mean.”
There were nods once again all around the room.  We held another moment of shared silence, taking in the truth of what he had said.
Chester coughed once and then cleared his throat.
“Well, thank you everyone for coming. We’ll be meeting here again in a few weeks. Everyone is most welcome to come,” he looked right at the dragon.
We rose, stretching our limbs.  We all shook hands and I grabbed Maurice’s cold claw as we said goodbye.
“Thanks for coming, hope we see you again.” 
He nodded with a smile,  “Yes, possibly.”
The door closed, everyone was gone. The smell of smoke still remained.

Ashes

The sun shone in through the open window into the little kitchen of an apartment nestled in the Marina. Kim arranged the red bell peppers on a cookie sheet lined with foil, taking great care to place them just right. Soon her guests would arrive; her mother and step father and baby nephew Andrew, and on the other hand, her boy friend and her old college room mate. She would wow them one and all with her culinary supremacy, starting with these roasted peppers and finishing with a desert of sour cream dipped strawberries and brown sugar. With the peppers in the oven she moved to the skillet where she planned to fry some spicy Italian sausages. The olive oil was warming in the pan when the phone rang in the living room. She turned off the fire and hurried to answer it.
“Hello?” she said into the receiver barely catching it on the sixth ring.
“Hi Baby, how’s it going?” asked Max, her boy friend.
“Great.” She chirped, “Are you almost here?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to make it.” He said. His tone was too calm, too untroubled. There was a stunned silence on her end. In a moment, however, she recovered her tongue and launched into an interrogation. She wanted to know whether or not he was high, why couldn’t he come if he wasn’t high, he was supposed to have been on his way a half hour ago, what happened, who was he with, didn’t he know how hard she had worked, didn’t he care at all, and so on. Her voice rose in pitch as she fired questions off with the rapidity of a small dog’s angered barking. His answers all came barbed with criticisms of her and relics of ancient arguments, insinuations of her own guilt in this matter of his absence. Soon she was crying and he was yelling and then she was screaming and his voice was shaking. They chased one another in circles with their ring around the words game, each participant growing more and more hysterical as the match progressed. The apartment filled with smoke. Kim scarcely noticed it until suddenly she was roused from her nightmarish entanglement via the telephone by the sound of the doorbell. It was then that she noticed the smoke. She could barely breath.
“I have to go.” she snapped into the receiver, “My apartment’s on fire.” And she hung up and hurried to the door flinging it open. Her mother and step father stood there with baby Andrew between them. They coughed and stared in horror at the smoke pouring out to greet them. Kim scarcely looked at them with her tear streaked face. All of the mascara had run off her lashes and formed morbid black circles around her puffy red eyes. They cringed at the sight of this creature with billows of smoke rushing out of the door past its forlorn shape. She turned on her heels and ran coughing to the kitchen.
“Oh my God Kim!” Her mother was saying, but Kim was already out of sight, braving the inferno. The smoke alarm began to howl belatedly and the telephone proceeded to ring and baby Andrew, not to be outdone at the fine age of two, joined in with his own wailing.
“I’m going to take the baby outside.” Her mother said scooping weeping little Andrew up in her arms.
“I’ll see if Kim needs a hand,” her step father said, stepping over the threshold into the smoky apartment. Her mother snorted in response and headed back towards the elevator.
“Kim?” Her step father called over the din, batting at the smoke with one hand. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine!” she shouted too passionately for the words to be convincing.
She came flying out of the kitchen and started throwing open all of the windows.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” She repeated, chest heaving as she jerked the phone out of the wall and threw it on to the sofa silencing its jingle. Then she leaped over an easy chair, skirt flapping, and snatched the welcome mat from the floor. She was still vigorously fanning the air near the smoke detector when her old friend Emily stepped in. Kim’s step father had ventured into the kitchen and now re-emerged with a cookie sheet upon which eight small charred lumps were smoldering.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyeing the lumps curiously.
“Dinner.” Kim huffed before bursting into fresh sobs.
Emily who had been surveying the scene felt her jaw drop. Then she said,
“I’ll order a pizza.”

The Lion's Face

His name was Tad which was short for Thaddeus. Thaddeus was his father’s name. He was sixteen years old and unusually tall and lean. His hair was the color of straw and tended to be a mess. No one had ever taught him a way of combing it and he had cut it himself just to keep it out of his eyes since he was six years old. That was after his mother had run away to California.
He sometimes got a postcard or letter from her. He had received three to be exact, two postcards and one letter in the ten years since her departure. Her name was Helen. She had married Thaddeus Sr. when she was only fifteen. She ran away to be with a traveling vacuum salesman and get away from the town of Bethlehem where she had lived her whole life up till then.
Tad was in the high school marching band. When he wore his white uniform and bright red cap he resembled a matchstick. He played trombone. That was until the day that Pauly, Cash, and Steve pried the case out of his hands after school. Pauly was the shortest, with a mean square jaw and a buzz cut. What he lacked in height he made up for with pure aggression. He was the ring leader. Cash was the lumbering giant. Big and dumb with a perpetually bruised eye. At home he was the punching bag, but at school he did all the punching. Steve was of average build, not too lean and not too hefty, neither short nor tall. He wore a leather jacket and sold ecstasy, acid, and reefer to other kids, all of which he obtained from his older brother Stan. While Pauly was the brains, and Cash the muscle, Steve just struggled to keep up and laughed no matter what was happening, encouraging the other two with his enthusiasm.
Tad tailed after them begging to get his trombone back. Whenever he got close enough to make a grab for it, Cash just gave him a rough shove back while Pauly continued mixing insults and abuses with the occasional taunt and Steve trailed behind the other three, doubling over with laughter now and then when the abuses were particularly amusing. In this way, they paraded all the way down to the river where Pauly flung open the case, made a few more quips, and dumped the instrument into the brown water. Now Tad made his greatest effort to reach the trombone, but Cash threw him down on the muddy bank and pressed his cheek into the wet earth. Pauly kneeled and tilted his head to face his victim.
“What’s the matter? I’m doin’ you a favor. Your never gonna get any girls if you spend all your time fiddling with your trombone.” Steve erupted into a fresh burst of chortles and flopped down onto his rear trying to catch his breath.
“Yeah.” Pauly said, “Have you heard from your mom lately?’
When Tad’s answer was to try and struggle with Cash, Pauly continued, “Aw. That’s too bad. She stopped by my place last night.”
And so it went until the trombone was long gone and Tad’s uniform was soaked and stained with mud. Cash then let go of him and the three tormentors strolled away. Tad lay in the muck waiting for their voices to fade into the distance. Laying there studying the mud he noticed something shiny protruding about two feet from his face. He reached out with his hand and plucked it was of the moist grime and brushed its surface clean with his fingertips. At first he thought it was a coin, but then he noticed that it had a loop to run a chain through. There was a lion engraved on one surface, and on the back, “For my Katie.” was inscribed in a flowery script. Tad clutched the amulet in his hand and stood up. He spent the evening searching the banks down stream for his trombone but all he found was the case.

Tad could not tell his father about the trombone since it had cost a great deal of money. Neither could he bear to explain the manner in which it had been lost. In the weeks following the event, he carried the empty trombone case away from the house to keep up appearances. He often didn’t make it to the school at all. Instead he strolled along the river bed, musing over his treasure, wondering who Katie was, imagining that he might meet her one day, looking for her medallion among the reeds. He imagined she would be so pleased that he had found it, that they would agree it was fate that had brought them together. Katie might have long brown hair and green eyes. She might be someone from the school that he had never seen before, or somebody’s cousin just visiting, or even an older woman, a college student come home to care for ailing parents. They would fall in love and she would beg him to come with her, away from Bethlehem to New York, or California, or wherever she went to school.
Soon he no longer debated whether he should go to school or take another walk. The river seemed to be calling him, Katie was waiting for him. Each day, he left the house a little earlier and he came home a little later.
He wandered farther afield than he had ever gone as a boy, following the river upstream, under bridges, through pastures. Breathing the fresh air, stretching his legs, examining the amulet, he dreamed up pleasant conversations with Katie, picnics and swimming in the river, first kisses and second kisses and more and more and more.
On one particular Friday afternoon, he passed the point at which he usually turned back home. His father would go to the bar after work and he would be home late. Tad would be home late too. He pressed on and caught sight of a distant orchard. The sun was poised in the center of a blue sky beaming warmth down on his straw colored hair. He whistled and ate a sandwich and drank a root beer he had packed. On the opposite bank he caught sight of the ruins of a burned out house. The whole bank surrounding it was charred black. The remains of a few trees jutted up out of the ground mournfully. Tad put away the uneaten remains of his sandwich. He stripped off his shirt, socks and shoes and put them in his backpack. The medallion, which he wore on a bit of twine around his neck, gleamed in the noonday sun. He sat the back pack down in the grass out of the river’s reach and waded in. The cool water felt good after a morning of walking. The current was gentle and he waded until he had to swim and soon, he made it to the opposite bank.
He approached the charred ruins carefully, watching for broken glass or anything that might injure his bare feet. There was very little to see. A wall stood with a bit of sooty wallpaper still intact. He had almost satisfied his curiosity and made up his mind to swim back when he noticed something glittering beneath a mound of ash. Walking on the balls of his feet he approached gingerly and brushed away the soot. He caught his breath. It was a lion’s face, like the one on Katie’s medallion, gazing at him from the lid of a pewter jewelry box. The box lay open, it’s hinges fully extended. He lifted it, but there was nothing underneath. His hand drifted to the amulet at his throat.

Saturday morning, Tad mowed the lawn for his father. Thaddeus Sr. sat under the shade of the porch drinking bottles of cool beer one by one. When the lawn was finished, Tad left his father dozing on the porch and stormed the garage. Every Sunday for the last three years the Nors County Tribune had been left on the porch. Tad’s father read the funnies and the sports section and then deposited the paper in the garage to be recycled someday. There, in the stuffy darkness of the dusty garage, the young man searched around for the most recent papers, carefully reading dates and arranging a stack that spanned over the last 12 Sundays. Then he retired with them to his own room and began a systematic search starting with last Sunday’s paper. In the third paper, he found what he was looking for. A fire in east Nors county had killed 82 year old Kathleen Sims in her home. She had no children to survive her. Her ex-husband Ralph Sims still lived in Florida with his second wife.

On Sunday, Tad walked the length of the river only as far as Old Pete’s bridge. He stood in its center, watching the water rush by, disappearing under his feet. He remembered that his mother had brought him here to Play Pooh sticks when he was small. It was a game she picked up from an old children’s movie which she played for him every morning while she did the housekeeping. The game involved each player dropping a stick into the water at one side of the bridge and then rushing to the other side to see whose stick came out in the lead. She’d had to hold him up so that he could drop his stick over the side at the same time that she dropped hers. Then she would rush with him in her arms so that they could see whose stick had won the race.
He thought about his Katie, the way he had imagined her, and of the picture of the wrinkled little woman from the newspaper photograph. If they had met while she was alive, she might have baked him cookies and he would have done her yard work. If he had been born 66 years sooner, then maybe she would have been his green eyed black haired Katie. She would have married him instead of Ralph Sims and they would have died together in the fire. He turned the lion faced amulet in his fingers and watched the sunlight reflect from its golden surface. He heard them coming long before he looked up to face them. They were practically on top of him before he acknowledged them with a glance.
“Where you been Tad?” Pauly sneered. “Haven’t seen you around school lately. You been here looking for your trombone this whole time?” Steve snickered.
Pauly caught sight of the amulet pressed between Tads thumb and forefinger, “What’s that? Was it your whore Mommy’s? You missing your Mommy Tady wad?”
Pauly’s hand darted out to snatch the amulet but Tad was a hair quicker, jerking his own hand out of reach. In an instant, Cash was behind Tad pinning his arms behind his back.
“Throw this moron into the river.” Pauly laughed at his own suggestion because Steve was too occupied with slumping against the railing as if he were falling asleep.
Tad struggled while Cash endeavored to heave him over the rail. He wiggled and kicked and his head was slammed against the rail just as the bigger boy managed to flop him over the side. Katie’s medallion fell ahead of him glistening in the sun as it went. It hit the water just seconds before Tad’s inert body came crashing down over it, forcing it down to the river bed escorted by tiny green bubbles. Cash and Pauly hung over the rail waiting for Tad to resurface so they could throw in a few more abuses. When he did, he was face down in the water and completely motionless, drifting slowly downstream.
“Shit.” Pauly said after a few moments of stunned silence. “Shit! You banged his head on the rail!”
“I didn’t do nothin’,” Cash protested.
“Fuck.” Pauly said. “Fuck. I think you killed him.”
“I did what you told me to do.” Cash puffed out his pudgy chest.
“Oh shit.” Pauly said looking around to see if they had been observed. “C’mon, lets go.” He didn’t have to tell Cash twice, but Steve didn’t move.
“Steve,” Pauly said, “C’mon, we’re going!” He pulled on the leather jacket but Steve was out cold now, sitting with his back propped up against the rail and his mouth draped open. Pauly pulled him until he fell over on his side and murmured something indistinct.
“Whatever. Forget him. Let’s go,” Pauly commanded and he and Cash hurried away with shoulders hunched.
Katie’s amulet followed Tad’s dead body downstream for a while until he drifted up onto the bank not far from where they’d met. Then it kept going on it’s own, carried along by the current, until the lions face was once again shining in the sun, miles away from the town of Bethlehem.

The Fire

The fire comes in the night, but this fire is not the kind with orange flames that bite or the flickering light with blue tips that seeks out flesh and wood and hair to eat. This fire is a storm of the mind. A rampage of heat and sparks where surely every firefighter in the state would rush to with their hoses drawn and their red hats glistening under the moon, if only their sirens would blare, if only the operators were alerted and the trucks sent on their way, if only they could feel her inner heat, the inner flames, the house consumed and crumbling, the tall-as-tree flames that course through her body like a forest fire without limits, as though the wind itself where the conspirator, the ally of the wild with only one goal, the hope for conquest, land, and blackened earth. The flames move to devour, to travel far and wide, before the helicopters come with their retardant powders, before the husky men show up with hard cocks and heavy jackets. And she wishes she could rely on some saviors in hardhats, but all that comes is the sound of owl wings bating in the night and the tree leaves that rustle in the glory of minute feathered vibrations.
Beneath lenses of red and orange, she watches the black cloaked trees. The floor under her feet is cold, and as she stands, staring out the tall window beside her bed, she simultaneously soaks in the silence of the night and hears the crinkling of flesh turning to ash. The tree limbs sway softly in the cold hours before dawn. She, in her long white nightgown, she looks out the open blinds, as though watching a lit spectacle, the flames inside cover the irises of her eyeballs and even though she stands perfectly still, her body stiff as a statue, inside she is ablaze, watching the forest outside like a prisoner watches cars speeding past a barred window.
The thought jabs, she feels it prickling the stillness of her pose. She feels the knife poking through the flames. Cutting through the moving blades of red, orange, and blue. Like thunder in the middle of a calm night, she looks to her right, to the man asleep on the bed, his arms cradling a soft pillow. She looks at him, at the only home she knows, the castle comprised of human flesh, the guardian of her life. He is without armor, without a metal helmet or even a sword by his side. He sleeps, unguarded, his thoughts lost in a dream of sugar and death, watching as flowers blossom into stiff armies advancing upon the gates of a desert. He, her home. Softly breathing, his heat almost strong enough to arm her cold feet and chilled shoulders.
And the thunder roars, and it rips her attention, takes it from his sleeping body and she turns again to the dark night, just outside the thin pane of glass and just beyond her hands’ ability to reach. Like a jab to her love, her eyes wander to the branches, swaying to unfelt wind that began in the arctic, began while they were still sunbathing and barbecuing. Her body feels the cold, her feet are numb against the wooden floor, but still, inside, it comes and the flames stay with her. Her body is cold and shivering, soon, it may collapse beneath the strain, but the fire inside mounts, the flames in her heart crackle in the night.