Fire.
I strike a match and light the shreds of kindling I
have cut with my knife.
Juniper.
I fan the incense toward me.
The smoke rises, curls, coils around my face.
It feels good to be in the desert again.
Home, where I can pause, remain silent.
There's nothing to explain.
I break twigs and lean them against each other
in the formation of a teepee.
More smoke.
On hands, and knees in red sand, I blow at its base.
Blow again at a handful of dried cottonwood leaves, blow.
They ignite.
Flames engulf the triangle.
I sit back on my haunches, pleased that the fire
is growing in the desert and me so that I can dream.
Remember how it is that I have come to love.
It is fate that determines the territory of the heart.
I add more sticks, blow, the fire flares in darkness.
The wood opens.
Flames rise, flicker, my eyes blur.
I hold every detail of love in my body.
Nothing forgotten.
Put more sticks on the fire.
It surges sputters and purrs.
The fire holds me captive.
Charismatic flames wave me closer.
I add two more sticks like bodies to love.
They are consumed instantly.
The fire shifts then settles with no intensity.
It shifts again, adjusts.
The wood pops like vertebrae.
The silver bark of juniper burns black, turns white.
A spark breathes.
I crouch down and blow on embers.
They flare and quiver.
I blow again.
They become rubies.
I reach into the coals, believing, and burn my fingers,
blister their tips, pull back in pain, and bury my hands.
The fire wanes.
I cannot bear its absence.
I lower my head and blow.
The fire ignites, my longing returns.
When we want everything to change, we call on fire.
I fetch more wood.
Bones of pinyon and juniper lie on the desert floor.
Even in darkness, I see them illumined by the moon.
I gather them in my arms.
This time, they are larger.
I must break them over my knee, and feed the fire once again.
The fire is aroused.
The flames reach higher.
I stand before them with my arms raised.
My hands surrender and come down to caress the heat
and mold it into faces I love.
Do I dare to feel the white heat of my heart as a prayer?
What is smoldering inside?
And how is it that pleasure exists between such beauty
and violence?
Feed the fire.
No.
Yes.
My fingers touch the blaze of bodies in flames.
The fire explodes.
Flames become blue tongues curling around each other.
My eyes close.
I step forward.
My legs open to the heat.
The tingling return of heat inside, outside.
Shadows dance on the sandstone my ghostly lover.
I allow myself to be ravished.
My generosity becomes my humiliation.
The hair between my legs is singed.
My left hand shields my face from the fire, fingers open.
It is a shuttered scape.
Fingers clench.
I hold a fist before the flames, loyal and disloyal at once.
Above me, free tailed bats circle the flames like moths.
Moths frighten me.
I hate their addiction to light.
But bats delight in darkness with their ears wide open.
What do they hear that I am missing?
Gifted in the location of echoes,
they listen twice to all that is spoken in the desert.
They are dark angels, who register our longings
and pinpoint the cries lodged within our throats.
Heat, more heat.
My face flashes red.
The fire's hands are circling.
I sit inches away from something that tomorrow will not exist.
The blue eyed coals I gave in to will disappear.
Ashes to ashes.
Death is the natural conclusion of love.
But tonight, it remains alive.
And I know in the shock of my heart
that love is as transitory as fire.
The warmth I feel, the glow of my body,
and the force of my own interior heat is enough to keep me here.
It is our nature to be aroused.
Not once, but again and again.
Where do we find the strength to not be
pulled apart by our passions?
How do we inhabit the canyons inside a divided heart?
One body, two bodies, three.
Beyond the junipers and pinyons of this starless
night, I face the deep stare of darkness.
This wildness cannot be protected or preserved.
There is little forgiveness here.
Experience is the talisman I hold for courage.
It is the desert that persuades me toward love, to step outside
and defy custom one more time.
The fire now bears the last testament to trees.
I blow into the religious caverns of wood
and watch them burn brightly.
My breath elucidates each yellow room.
And I remember the body as sacrament.
I have brought white candles with me.
I take them out of my pouch, and secure them in the sand.
With a small stick, I carry a flame
from the fire and light one and another and another.
They threaten to flicker and fade.
I shelter them with my hands and watch
the way the wax trickles down the side of each taper.
Once away from the flame, it hardens.
My body reflects back the heat.
I dip the tip of my finger into the small basin
of heated wax shining at the base of the work.
Bring it to my lips, and paint them.
I turn toward the flames.