A Blazing Magpie

Child of Fire

Wrought as winter's embers
Still glowed in the fireplace,
Refined in a red-clay forge,
Hammered flat on the anvil
That was my teen years
And tempered by tragedy,
I became hard, cold, edgy,
But I know what it is to burn.

I have boiled over, bubbling
Like so much pastel mud
In a Yellowstone paint pot,
Shot steam-spray rockets
Skyward, young geyser, I,
With irregular abandon;
Simmering, stewing sot,
Quick to erupt, deadly.

Yes, I have shat fire alive,
Pissed kerosene streams
In a raging incendiary arc
On awaiting heaps of tinder,
And felt scalding salt-tears
Scorch sooty, puffy cheeks
As I wept over bridges
I had sacked and ashed.

Today I am inferno incarnate,
Tin dipper melting in hand
As I try and fail once more
To fetch just a healing sip
From the waiting, loving pool
Which longs to quench me.
My soul pops and crackles,
Son of flames, I am consumed.


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