The Words

My words dry me
up. They are

matchsticks I light,
more than once I touched them with the wet
tip of my tongue to smother the
flame, only to swallow
them, still burning.

Accidental fire eater. And for the duration of the flame, I am
a firefly.

(The last time I saw one I was with you, at Princeton.
Glowing in the dark humid air, their electrical
firefly bodies. Pre-storm.
...


I swallow them
up. It's no accident.

Unspoken, my burning words are
an incomplete circle.

A resolution that may exist
but remains undiscovered, like
that one time you lost your forgiveness for
me through a hole in your
coat's pocket.

In the Alphabet City,
a woman is burning alive.
With my glowing bones cracking burns every
last page,
every stop sign,
every ending so you'll never
have a trace of peace.