t.m.r

The fireworks sparkled and died,
and through a potsmoke cloud, my eyes saw opportunity.

Looking back,
I could have been a disappointing phoenix,
Aflame but without cause.
Maybe even running about, engulfed wings outstretched.
If I sat, then I’d be a petty burning protestor, like Buddhist Duc*,
for no cause but careless adolescence.

It’s a shame, really,
that my gasoline fingertips didn’t catch
the lighter’s warm tongue.
Or it just didn’t lap at the vodka
drying on my skin.

I’d have been a bad burning bush, anyway.




*Thich Quang Duc was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963.