CW: DEATH
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.
