The trick was to hold butane in your mouth,

he’d say, and at the match to aim a stream:

keep the flow steady, don’t breathe in. I’ve seen

it in a jittery home movie: Miklavž, 
December ‘63 (before me, when

they still lived in the city), with a pack

of devils around him—their faces blacked,

stooped with chains, straining toward the children.  
One figure stands now—is it him?—and flames

billow from his head. The frames judder, jump

cut—to memories of blows on my rump,

disgust at my lack of common sense, blame
cast at my mother. My father often

would breathe fire. The trick’s to not breathe it in.