Fire Child

by Rayna Brown

I remember as a child
you liked to dance before the fire.
 
Pumping your fists through smoke
grey & white tinged clouds.
 
Unfettered in the dusk
the smell caught in your
 
skin, your clothes, your eyelashes.
You used to dance brawl in it
 
hurling your body in & out
molding shapes with your fingertips
 
solidifying them with your breath.
The sweet scent of flames licking wood
 
you used to tell me you smelled it later
on your clothes, taste it on the tip of your tongue
 
ashes in your eyebrows, the tips of your eyelashes.
You once told me that at the innermost point of your body
 
there was only fire & smoke
a massive fire pit
 
the heat spiraling upwards, so furiously
that your heart was eternally burning
 
an open wound cooked & reheated
scabs on top of scabs.
 
I didn't know what to say to that. I still don't.
You were so young, we both were.
 
Standing there before the dying embers
your face covered in ash
 
only your lips, clean
to taste the burn, you whispered to me,
to fuel the fire.