When there’s nothing left to burn,

     you have to set yourself on fire

      —Stars, Your Ex Lover Is Dead



The one thing you’ll regret is not

setting the world on fire yourself.

Here we are, young and attractive,

poetic, even, with steam curling

from the tips of our fingers, searing

scorch marks on asphalt roads, fire

smoldering at the tips of our tongues.

If we wanted to

we could speak flame,

set whichever body ablaze with our lips,

raze this city down with our touch,

melt another skyscraper in the CBD,

another gas station, another plastic factory.

The bones of this city are kindling

we need only breathe

unto it.

Piles of dead bodies, the gas tanks of cars,

oil sheens slick on water trickling through

gutters, money wads in casinos. This swamp

of concrete begs for a spark. Everything

is tinder. Watch: this house

of matches ignites when I

speak.

            You do not.

30 years from now, your skin

mummified against your bones,

nothing but the buttresses

of your vertebrae remaining

as your throat, your last phalanx

desiccating at the end of your wrist,

you will sit against

what was once a tower of glass,

when all the forests are cities

and all the oceans are cities

and all the cities are desert and ash.

You will try to speak then

but the wind will grind into your bones

and your wrist bones will shatter

into rubble beneath your tailbone.

It won’t even rain. No vultures.

No mushrooms blooming in soft earth.

There will only be melted glass and twisted

steel,

                               sun,

                                                                   stone.