The dark barge works the length of braziers humped like monks awaiting sacrifice; the first flames wisps of Saint Joan’s last thin smile, that tiny slice of distance that keeps us apart and keeps us walking toward each other under bridges to nightfuls of music, burns crusted over, the scarskin describing our lives like a swirl of tattoos: rippling old glories, anchor lost at sea, cornerless heart stabbed by a sword, arc of each hour edged with flame feeding the river of fire. We are in this together, great democracy of blazing structure, you, me, the monks, the martyrs: same as it ever was, consumer and consumed: we are all going up; we are burning.
Tom Chandler is the former State Poet Laureate of Rhode Island and is a professor of creative writing at Bryant College. His most recent collection of poetry, Wingbones, is part of the Signal Books Signature Poets Series.
