COMBUSTION

Like a coal
we glow with one 
red heart, 
pulse with one 
heat, and rising 
with it ride 
each other up 
to the sky, our lips 
cauterized 
against each other.

You and I 
are natural as twins, 
a perfect fit. 
We mingle water, 
share one breath, 
caress one 
immense skin 
wrapped around 
what once was two, 
stretched around 
the breathing place 
of living coals.

We are the delicate 
forms of branches 
held in the heat 
of stones, consumed,
refined, fused 
into nothing, only leaving 
behind the mineral 
bones and soft 
gray flesh of wild 
and complete combustion.


© 2003 by Richard W. Todd

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