All Out of Heat

Brother, you been stacking it on stick by stick, building me a fire. Child by child, taught to build a pyre-- keep us warm, hide from the cold. Stares of hell that face your soul huff by huff, puff by puff shutting down the wants for food, shutting down the wants for love. Here I am, clicking my fingers, where you used to click your lighter-- "Ha, ha", fireworks to the sky! Burns me inside to see you clicked off. No one home, no one feeding the babes no one working, no one piling on the fire. I don’t know if it makes me sick hot and cold. Sick, is the truth, you’ve made me feel ...you dead. --after Just that Archaic Poet’s Playing with Fire