Pyre

Gather it. Gather it all.
The big and the small trinkets of
Time chiming with salt.
Get the kindling. The folder, the photo.
I do not need it. This is the point,
The basis of the repeated rite.

Arrange it nicely. I am one for
Presentation. I want my feet orbited
By these rotten mementos. Now,
Strap me to it, as if this were
A proper one. I will be the boy witch,
And you will be the Puritan.

Be still. Let me go red. Not a trickle from
My mouth. Not a single flinch from
The soles I once tread upon.
I go red. I go black. I go back to
Ash Wednesday. Orange anger,

Blinding, with a thumb tilling
My forehead.
I do not need reminding.

They simplify the chore of it by
Brushing, rushing my ravaged

Infrastructure to dustbins.
Asleep, dreaming of the tunnel I

Bore, still glazed in afterbirth.
I grip the column for support.
The first was of Herculean struggle.
But they saw me go, swift as a

Plague.

I surface from the marsh of a two-year
Waltz. A wobble, a skip from a vat of

Horned hunt. Still caked, I am

Plucked up by chance, and I meet a

Pair of hands that are undeniable.

Let us not cower this time. Let us
Ruin the lot. Drag the feather,
The beaded tether. Drag the sofa

With breasts to the center. You!
You take the can, and damn it all if

You leave a dent dry. I want to see it
Blazing sky high.

When I signal, lock me in. You won't
Hear a peep from me in the din of

Old castles crackling. This should
Have been the first method to

Contemplate.
Nip it at the cage. A wick capped 
By a tiger lily,
I conflagrate.

In the air I reconstruct from the

Spellbound soot.
A mint me, poised on a balcony of

Wind. I take it in: the charred scar of

A former house below. No, do not
Slow, you must hurtle toward the
Consequent cataclysm.

A thousand snowflakes, a milligram

Snap, a twining of punctured

Tentacles. I beckon them.
Sire, Sire! We have readied the fire.
It is a glorious mound, all digital and

Dynamic. And it glows with the same

Measure of expunging power that I

Desire.
An exemplary pyre.

Take me.
Ankle, wrist, like a couple
Double-Dutch-ing and I am but a rope.
Just do it! I want to be wrapped
In the same decorative curvature
Of a valiant motorcycle.
Their creases ease and I
Ride the parabola, landing 
On the ruby raised rug.
They do not miss.

I told them I won’t scream. I won't
Even hiss.
I am a man of my word, and
I let it lick, lick.
Away with bacteria congealed
Since infancy, since the last roast.
Relishing a molten malignancy.

What is this! Don't sweep, let him
Prove it on his own. Beneath a
Primped pile of ashes.
Almost like a magic trick. A trap

Door. My claw pushed through, one

Talon streaked in black, in blue.
I do not cough. The residue is slick
To me, a perpetual log.

A head with an absence of hair,
And a rib cage clear enough to call

Mountainous! A few more lines on
A skin so thin that even the softest
Glare or punctuated pass could fall
Straight through.
Lips set as firm as stone. Brows

Fused down to an underscore.
Anew.
Anew, and a brain straining against

Figures and phrases to subdue.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH