The Long Fire
a long fire from the back alley of time
rises out of Ouija’s letters,
one small alphabetical
creeping up after another,
until this blaze catches on the board,
sparked like rubbing one stick on another
by the claws of her sweet planchette;
and what a fire it is, too,
enough to barbecue a giraffe
or some other elegant
ungulate from the plains—
growing, growing like a clear cut blaze
in a corporate logger’s wallet,
like an oil well flare
lighting up a desert night,
like Big Boy’s dawn over Hiroshima,
like the gates of hell—
can’t be stopped,
can’t be contained,
can’t be looked at straight on
without protective eyewear—
can’t be starved
like those other petty blazes
‘cause they didn’t have
these few words
scratched on the kindling:
No job is worth
the death of your angels