I can play with fire,
See?
Warmth moving down my arms
Tracing the inside of my skin
dancing through my fingertips
and flowing into a small focus
between my palms
not crackling, not smoking
just burning
I can pass it through the air,
back up into my chest
around my neck
across my lips
under my eyes
down my legs to the
soles of my feet
I can sear it into images
into ideas and symbols
in the space before my eyes
from the gallery of my forehead
and I can write you songs with flames
and paint you pictures with tongues of white-orange-blue
and I feel like a little kid
and I guess we’re all little kids
G-d only gives us fire when we’re trusted to handle it
if only for a moment
but maybe sometimes we get greedy
or maybe we just get cold
and dip our fidgety hands into the hearth
though we know there’s no
dessert before dinner
and maybe we knock out an ember
or dance around the living room with a crown of coals
and we catch the straw
give birth to blaze
and that new child cries and cries
until the house returns to the mud
and we play a new game
having dried our tears
ashes, ashes
it all burned down
But sometimes we light it just right
and a meal is cooked
and we sit, and we talk
telling stories
shooting new stars up into the heavens
white fire on black fire
and black fire on white
and we realize that we could never steal a piece from its source
because all fires are one fire
and we, my friends
are spoiled rotten
