when you made your blood and mucous migration
down the birth canal
you were burning
you were burning
at your mother’s breast
and she was burning
in the hospital bed
you were burning
when you conceived your children
and later they were solar flares
in their cribs
in your winter of failure
divorce despair
you were the type of ice
that burns
you were burning
later on silent meditation retreats
your still mind a cauterizing
white-blue flame
and now this morning
eye-scalding red tulips in your garden
pyre of rust on your shovel’s blade
while your body gnarls and aches
withers and lags
the short wick
of aging sickness death
burning
with every incandescent
breath
— from Juniper Volume 5, Issue 3