Old photos blink. We catch firefly wings in our teeth, share clothes
until our faces average into each other. We don’t have enough flashlights
to stave off hunger, so we burn them instead. An orbit collapses.
When you said bonfire I imagined something much larger, more irreverent.
Now we thrust our clothes into the flames, which could always hurt us
if they tried. When the smoke clears nobody is within touching
distance. For the first time we do not care. The air peeling skin
into more luminous skin. A galaxy passes the event horizon.
A galaxy—ours—passes out of earshot. Traffic lights an aurora.
A radiant corpse. Irradiant—irradiated. Tell me there’s devotion
in the ticks chewing your soft ankle and I’ll tell you there is memory
like cancer in our palms / so bite them off / keep your wrist / in my teeth /
say / isn’t this / everything? / my dead deer, isn’t this everything?