Wants

I’m on fire, but without fuel,

Oxygen, or spark nothing burns.

Such an odd feeling, casually aflame.

I flush, pale warmth, but I fear

The blaze is my imagination—

Imagining what I wish to hear,

The crack of ignition through the air.

Yes, I bear stigmata of heat—

A variety of sunburn from a failed star—

As if a lover’s soul had moved

Up in the queue with me behind,

And I’ve inherited its spot in line

Along with some discarded afterglow.

I wonder if the body knows

The difference between heat

And fire—one locked in skin, the other

Maddeningly inconsistent, cruel,

Rushing from tongue to mouth.

The problem is this warmth has turned

Impersonal—it extinguishes all attempts

To kindle more.

     Fuel, oxygen and spark

Are out of reach, and so my soul,

Having flared, has settled down to ash,

Spent on a hearth now cooled, now worn.

But one crack of an ember calls it back,

And my soul, it wants to burn.

EJR