Campfire

“Fire is the thunderbolt that stirs all things”—Heraclitus

Out of habit you begin to sense the whisper of fall leaves scraping streets: Burn the past,

and mysteries of loneliness will not concern you,
even as the family congregates for warmth,

and you might dream about the dryness
of the daughter’s down coat and wool socks.

Weigh the worth of bloody deeds impressed on newsprint
resurrecting into ash, their taste and smell,

the lives of lives you wipe out through the night.
I can’t count all the universes that disintegrate

when you lick the air—tongue-strikes quick as lightning—
but eventually your perseverance will be tested by the wind,

the wind that knows sometime you’ll come undone.