P oetry R epair S hop (1999.08: 091)
- CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL POETRY
- by new, emerging, and established poets

TRINA STOLEC
Fire

Some people think in words;
I think in pictures.
Vivid red, green, violet images,
                                real and imagined,
paint the black spaces between
synaptic discharges.

Somethings you're born knowing:
                                fear of the unknown,
                                the taste of tears,
                                instinct.
I've always known
                                fire.
When the reaper raises my coffin lid,
the white silk lining will be
                                ablaze.
I will climb inside,
watch my flesh bubble and char.
I will leave this world in the legacy
                                of agony and screams.
I will not pass peacefully in the night.

Hair and nails grow after you're dead,
but for how long?
It's been six months now,
and as the stars make their nightly appearance in the sky,
she makes her appearance in my mind.
She's long over due
                                for a haircut;
black locks reaching just passed
bone-ivory shoulders.
Delicate bones peak through the fabric
of her tattered skirt.
Her eyes were sewn shut.
The stitches strain and pull her flesh now,
try to sink into 
                                useless sockets.
She can't see anymore.
Doesn't know she was painted up
like a precious porcelain doll.
                                The rain stole her paint.
Worms take care of her now.
Better than I did.

Six feet above her head,
cold stone spells her name.
My finger traces the indentations,
slips to the fresh sod.
Green blades and black earth become water.
I swim,
sink,
lay beside her,
wrap my precious doll
tightly in my arms,
in the dark.

"There was no fire,"
                                she rasps.
There was
                                no fire.

Poem copyright 1999; all rights reserved. (If you desire a copy of this poem, please contact the AUTHOR).