Playing With Fire

Playing with Fire
 
Shall we blame Prometheus
thief of embryonic
embers—for giving warmth
 
to our bones and blood
sculpted from stardust and mud,
for stirring ashes of desire?
           
Ceasing to see, we regret
the absence, hence,
long for, seek, our beloved.
 
A mother’s desire to save
her thief of a son
ignites tales of treachery.
 
She burnt paintings of Matisse,
Picasso, Gauguin, in an oven
used to heat a sauna, sweat
 
impurities out of bodies. Found
in that Romanian oven, ashes
of cinnabar, chromium green,
 
lazurite, tin-lead yellow,
and plastic from a woman’s slipper—
a fagot of tinder.
 
Desire’s derived from considerare. Examine it
carefully. The oven
too small for all those paintings
 
and tin-lead yellow, toxic, not used
after the 19^thcentury.
Or de + sidre, out of, away from
 
the stars. Desire spawns augury, seeking
omens, ourselves.
In the caves of Lascaux, Roucadour
 
the ancients etched images of animals,
hand prints,
from blood and bone, remains of cooked meat
 
mixed with minerals, charcoal. A series of dots,
possible constellations
painted by torchlight. Some rock

openings align with winter solstice.
We desire more
of everything. No longer tinkering with flint,
 
yet, chained to this rock, we have forgotten
how we came to be
eating our hearts out.