(no subject)
Instructions for a Campfire
It takes a long time to learn.
The slow collection of birch and bramble,
The house made of splinters,
The swallowing of ash breath, pine & hickory split
Against the waxy tongues of old news and
Dumpstered cereal boxes,
The rough wait it takes,
How you must sit quiet,
How you must watch her squirm,
Grow her body like a centipede,
Your split lips blowing with that
Right wind, sharp enough to build a steady bloom,
Soft enough not to kill her too
Quickly,
How you must let her gather and snap,
Shudder into steady shiver,
Gaudy circus,
Dancer with no skeleton to
Speak of.
David Buckle straightened his spine
Stiff as a hemlock. Sat on a bed of homemade dirt
And watched new york city glitter her gooey eyelashes
As his body burned. Turned to a slash of ink,
hiss of flame, like a lost F-Train, like a dying pit viper,
Like the dollar coffee boiling, like a cougar claw scraping
Ripe pavement.
It was morning. Fog fell on the city like
Heavy plastic. Birds were heap-dying in the oil waters
Of the Atlantic. A pipe split her belly and burst
In North Dakota. Air turned to ash in the Virginias.
He made the arrangements.
Pocketed his credit card & covered the grass in compost,
Organized the orange buckets
Against the frame of the baseball field,
Left the muck boots drying on the wooden rack,
Apologized for what mess he would leave,
What mess we have already left.
How much did the cells sting?
What did the water in the body remember?
When did the ghosts arrive?
Did the oceans know of it?
What circled the air like hot wasps on the first lick of summer,
In that city so boiled and aching everything is always
Already screaming?
Who heard from the perch of the maple on Peter’s Mountain?
Who touched that long draught between the ribcage and the shoulder blades?
What home was made of the wet earth, feral as the collarbone of
American mountains? What did the magnolia mouth to him, as he walked the slow blocks
To Brooklyn, sacks of long dead vegetables heavy on his neck?
What carbon wove up into alien exoskeleton?
What burned? What was always burning?
In the end, there are always embers. The bow of the night unpeels,
The hearth bruises its image on your irises. The nightcrawlers sing a
Stiff hymnal. You must make a circle of stones. You must heed that she not
Become unbecoming, must not spread herself so wildly. The flame must be buried. Must be dug into eternal dirt.
It takes a long time to learn.
The slow collection of birch and bramble,
The house made of splinters,
The swallowing of ash breath, pine & hickory split
Against the waxy tongues of old news and
Dumpstered cereal boxes,
The rough wait it takes,
How you must sit quiet,
How you must watch her squirm,
Grow her body like a centipede,
Your split lips blowing with that
Right wind, sharp enough to build a steady bloom,
Soft enough not to kill her too
Quickly,
How you must let her gather and snap,
Shudder into steady shiver,
Gaudy circus,
Dancer with no skeleton to
Speak of.
David Buckle straightened his spine
Stiff as a hemlock. Sat on a bed of homemade dirt
And watched new york city glitter her gooey eyelashes
As his body burned. Turned to a slash of ink,
hiss of flame, like a lost F-Train, like a dying pit viper,
Like the dollar coffee boiling, like a cougar claw scraping
Ripe pavement.
It was morning. Fog fell on the city like
Heavy plastic. Birds were heap-dying in the oil waters
Of the Atlantic. A pipe split her belly and burst
In North Dakota. Air turned to ash in the Virginias.
He made the arrangements.
Pocketed his credit card & covered the grass in compost,
Organized the orange buckets
Against the frame of the baseball field,
Left the muck boots drying on the wooden rack,
Apologized for what mess he would leave,
What mess we have already left.
How much did the cells sting?
What did the water in the body remember?
When did the ghosts arrive?
Did the oceans know of it?
What circled the air like hot wasps on the first lick of summer,
In that city so boiled and aching everything is always
Already screaming?
Who heard from the perch of the maple on Peter’s Mountain?
Who touched that long draught between the ribcage and the shoulder blades?
What home was made of the wet earth, feral as the collarbone of
American mountains? What did the magnolia mouth to him, as he walked the slow blocks
To Brooklyn, sacks of long dead vegetables heavy on his neck?
What carbon wove up into alien exoskeleton?
What burned? What was always burning?
In the end, there are always embers. The bow of the night unpeels,
The hearth bruises its image on your irises. The nightcrawlers sing a
Stiff hymnal. You must make a circle of stones. You must heed that she not
Become unbecoming, must not spread herself so wildly. The flame must be buried. Must be dug into eternal dirt.