My Story About Your Story

Take care as you listen, you said.
I leaned forward with the others,
pencil in hand,
as light reflected from desktops.
Words can draw near
as flames to a log, their heat opening
secret mouths buried within.

Then you read.  Your voice unfolded
the burning of your uncle
with his house.
He left only a billfold on the lawn
open like an empty bird
as his drunken killers drove away.

My story is of your telling --
how your words settled on my skin
like cinders from a distant fire.
Their spark released tongues hidden in my flesh,
which sputtered smoked,
as I wrote, until all my secrets coiled in the air.
What use holding anything back?
And I lay parted
like an empty pair of wings.