#32

Making Love Happen

I am love with the gas fireball. It keeps my relationship with the gas stove fresh. It keeps lighting me on fire. I keep coming back from the hospital gloriously alive in the newest places. In the arms now and the face. After you left with everything but stove you thought I might be alone for awhile. You thought I would have to think awhile about what I did. What we did to each other would be all over my dirty, damned mind. Not not so.

Every day I go to the grocery store and buy three pounds of bacon. I bring it home and light up the stove. I let the gas run for awhile. I unwrap the bacon while I wait and feel it's cool grease on my hand and my arm. I wear a bacon glove to entertain myself. A strike for your plan. When my gauntlet bores me I stare into the burner. It's light keeps me alive. The hospital must have an understanding that I have bacon to burn through. Which is true. I place the wrap on my burns and bring them in. They started at my fingers and spread, like the staff's suspicion. Until I am buried in the bills I will wait in our house with my new lover. I will sleep in the kitchen and hold her.

I wonder when her flame will flicker. I wonder when the heat won't seem so exciting to the touch. She'll go just like you. The parts of me that felt something will die, one by one. Hands to arms to legs to feet to any nerve ended place. I hope you'll come back before that. I know you'll be here to light my fire again. Some glorious, blazing bright day.