fire

DHA KHIRI​

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In winter, we write letters
The way wild folk
Strike sticks together
Beneath the teepees of
Snow-hatted pines, huddled and yowling

The way bean-ied men at truck stops
Breathe mouth-fog into cupped hands
And gift it to each other, then cigarettes,
Then leave

A new language is made
Any time anyone, anywhere,
Sleeps outside without a coat

Every signal fire of
Harrowed souls and destitution-
These incantations of warmth
Are foreign to me;
They sit like pebbles in my gums,
But I am learning, I swear

This hovel of solitude

This bed alone
Across the world from
Anyone I've shared a bed with

The way a letter to you
Simple
A list of the shimmering moments
From the memory of my day
Can be like a spile
For the fructifying blood
From my fontanel to my cupped hands
This boiling inner love
Which dries beneath my nails

This nectar of loneliness
Which I sticky my palms with
To return feeling to my fingertips

It's strange

Fire, not God
Rescued our species from the
First rogue mysteries
The primordial ignorances
Of an animal not yet safe
It will remain the first word
Ever uttered by man
It will remain
In this violent song of twilight
This series of long, dark nights
The object of my intent
Fire is the purpose, the way
And the answer
And I doom my letter
To its palm

Outside, the long-dead sun
Throws the last of its red
On the underbellies of clouds

This molten, heavenly bloom
This churning of light like the last-caught glow
After the blink of a candle extinguished
So we are blind before the stars emerge

I write that I hope you look at the moon tonight
I write that I hope you are well

We grew up together

We found something, on a night like this
Which I keep beneath my bed in the dark
Where it is safe but I don't need to see it

You appeared on my doorstep in hat and scarf
And when later we slept on your floor
You awoke with a tremble, maybe feigned
At the thunder so I would hold you closer
​
And then the candle goes