Milagro

Here's a fact: a pendant pulled
from his pocket drunk, dull and silver.

A heart, a shovel.

Vena cava, I'd like to let you burn
me. I've lost. Let's try fire external.

A comet on my skin. I like
your scorch, your irresistible blister. Faster

than fate, it's the shape of you, star of my sternum,
your local pulse, a third degree pressure.

Oh arc of back, small of back! Neck, the dark
angle of groin and last, the internal lack.

It's metaphor and fact. Like this:

the weekend in the cabin cold as shit,
the firewood he stole and set and didn't tend,

the fight and then another fight,
the embedded splinter still surfacing,

the trace of something burning
still hanging in the air