subterranean flame
what if no one started it?
no one to blame
or hate
or punish
what if it breathed itself into being?
one long exhale from those Carboniferous bogs
the tip of its red tongue
flicking out to meet
bleached brittle grasses
already given over to drought
what if it wasn’t even fire that grew flame?
but rather the charged static
of this paused and polarized time
the dead air crackling
with our unmet needs
maybe it wasn’t you or me or them
who lit the first match
maybe the very air combusted
