The Boy Who Ate Fire

By Corrine De Winter

Like every hell,
extinguishing sin.
My mouth pale with devotion,
and silent with burning.

What will the angels,
blonde and pouting,
let us take from this union,
unholy as the ecstastic's dream?
It is a
dark and unfamiliar thing,
this flawed majesty
of ecstasy and suffering.

Then, as it always was,
the shine of wheat fields
in November
outside
the motel room window,
and every morning the bossa nova
of the 6:45 train.

And you,
forever with a carnival tune
on your lips
and fire
on your tongue.