Abednego

I fell in love with Abednego.


He breathed the colors of flames

into my hair

when he was stoned


and spent hours attempting to separate

the red and gold

with his fingers.

Silly boy was only stained with oranges


and once the autumn pigment

shamed me too much to look at,

I turned the furnace up seven times,

and threw him in.


I don't burn bridges.

I am the gasoline

who makes friends with souls

who carry matches in their pockets.


We drank poison in the name of tea,

made love in the name of friendship.

I'd forgive your shut-eyed ignorance

through your wind-slaughtered voice


as the moans break

on your ash,

kindled coldly with the loving snow.

But my shut-eyed ignorance offers

no response, no reply.


Water of a god—less

No god would rain on this.

Kisses of your singed frame,

now falling gray and silent

by discrete rejection

that would eat the flesh

over our snowing faces.


The snow falling on Abednego's grave

scares me as it buries and compresses

and bruises

the body that isn't there.


They will mourn, saying he sleeps

in the motherly arms of fate,

but it is the flickering charcoal pride that ate

Abednego and I.