caldera:

Ever as the ember streams,

I spit forth hot coals.

My mouth a caldera.

Every syllable was meant

to burn.

What can these words do?

What can they say?

When every one is punctuated

with hot ash.

I can only remember the

heat shimmer.

The illusion of something cool,

something deep.

I would sink in up to my neck.

In those cool waves you wove.

Something like silk,

but surely it was more phantasmal.

My hand passed through it,

I could curse every thread of

fate that brought me here.

But I could never curse your name.

Could never spit coal,

except to warm your hearth.

The same one we curled next to,

slept like kittens.

If only I could still romance the night.

If only I could stand with my back

to the wind again.

My words may soothe,

but I’d rather learn to curse.

So I could finally drag my tongue of

venom through those waves.

Finally be whole, in the eye

of my indifference.