after a painting by Peter Hurd
cup the flame
& feel the heat
burning in the low fields
burning the mountains
blue, in the cool dusk
burning your cheeks &
the insides of your fingers.
Don't smile. But stare
at the origin of fire
feel how it can warm
like a dream and burn
like a fever. Then hold
the thin candle deep into the night
deep, deep into the black night
& be still, very still, until
the light
goes
out.
Shea Balboa lives in Salem, Oregon, with her husband and three children. This is her first published poem.
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