About Fire

I watched the flame go out. It happened so gradually, without that last minutes sputter and spit, I sank to the temptation of feigning its presence. Instead of naming the dark, I searched for a match. Having found one I spent words striking it over and over but it was wet your sweat and my tears. I hadn't bargained for our skill at juggling dying coals, hadn't imagined the possibility of our combined genius. We blocked the light of our individual glowing by canny acts of partial snuffing. When our flame was gone, it caused a radiating stumbling, a kind of unheralded careening of accumulating ghosts. But you couldn't see them and I couldn't swim through the smoke.