Red/unit

For Dalton

It is a red slash unit

And I am the lucky girl

With a propane torch

Strapped to her back

And a match

And I will set that shit ablaze inside a glorious summer day

Full of flame and black smoke

And I do not care if I know how to get out of it

Because I am the lucky girl

With the gift of fire

And it will burn burn burn

A night and a day and

Forever if you let me

Drip torches, and helicopters with exploding balls, and 22 flare guns, and a

Terratorch

A terratorch! You let me spit flame in napalm

Widening arce flying through the air

Sighing with content

I make small circles with gasoline in dry grass and watch the wind

The wind takes it up the canyon

And sparks fly they fly through the air to more sparks in

Whorling patterns of

Orange bright

Glorious destruction

Ash will come later

For now I am content with heat

And the aliveness of burning

Transmutation of one dry thing

To another live thing

To a thing that is empty

And nascent for replanting

In the spring.

Or never, because ash has its own haunting beauty years after the flame is gone.

So don’t let me near your red/heart

Because I will set it aflame

If only to watch it burn.