Epitaph For Fire and Flower

You might as well haul up

This wave's green peak on wire

To prevent fall, or anchor the fluent air

In quartz, as crack your skull to keep

These two most perishable lovers from the touch

That will kindle angels' envy, scorch and drop

Their fond hearts charred as any match.

Seek no stony camera-eye to fix

The passing dazzle of each face

In black and white, or put on ice

Mouth's instant flare for future looks;

Stars shoot their petals, and suns run to seed,

However you may sweat to hold such darling wrecks

Hived like honey in your head.

Now in the crux of their vows hang your ear,

Still as a shell: hear what an age of glass

These lovers prophesy to lock embrace

Secure in museum diamond for the stare

Of astounded generations; they wrestle

To conquer cinder's kingdom in the stroke of an hour

And hoard faith safe in a fossil.

But though they'd rivet sinews in rock

And have every weathercock kiss hang fire

As if to outflame a phoenix, the moment's spur

Drives nimble blood too quick

For a wish to tether: they ride nightlong

In their heartbeats' blazing wake until red cock

Plucks bare that comet's flowering.

Dawn snuffs out star's spent wick,

Even as love's dear fools cry evergreen,

And a languor of wax congeals the vein

No matter how fiercely lit; staunch contracts break

And recoil in the altering light: the radiant limb

Blows ash in each lover's eye; the ardent look

Blackens flesh to bone and devours them.