Die Gar Traurige

In the crumbling storybook of morality tales,

little Harriet plays with matches and catches fire.

Her cats cry as her body becomes ash, their tears

pooling, putting her out too late: in the tinted picture

the flames extend from her back, incendiary wings.

As a child, you read this story again and again.

Lambent, from the Latin, lambere, which means

to lick: flame licking your ankles, faithful as

an animal—so loving, it wants to consume you.

The old cliché: tongues of flame, loving our flesh

to blackened bone. To become a glowing column

of tangerine and gold, festival-colored and darkly

smoking: the oaken dream of a carven effigy,

your wooden life. A nightmare, wrapped in sheer

and brightly shining bolts of fire. You may turn

and turn, but you cannot extinguish it: let it saint

you, this fierce and lively pillar of burning.