we sat before the fire
and tried our hardest to see
the light. it was buried,
we were sure of it,
one part cerulean in
a bed of such crimson---

an open-handed radiance,
harsh and asking you
to trace the topography
that is me: tongue
fingertips,
the anti-heroic marks
of battle---

the light is elusive despite
our attempts at
conjuration. that it might
grace this archipelago we make,
covered in blankets
on the pine floor. that
the blaze might become
a beacon to gods
lost long before.
let us start, then, this idolatry
whether there is light or not.
mouth to mouth, hand to knee.
vein-blue: the fire surprising us free,
with each alteration of hue,
with its Sphinx-like severity.

sparks of things.
cracks of birch.
sparks of things.

the one in me
is just the same:
blue and made up
of veins and stories;
longing for enough
light to make you
forget the blue
in our bed of crimson,
enough to calm
the desire for skin, for flame.

the light says i would make
a good cadaver.

i have not yet finished
my story. stomp out the fire,
you Byronic hero,
you monkey.
the light, when it comes,
will not give you away;
not completely,
not before i've time

to show you the blue,
to show you the red.

what the fire refuses,
my body will grant you instead.

kris t. kahn's poetry and prose-poems have recently appeared, or are forthcoming, in The Cortland Review, Naked Poetry, Stirring, Sulfur River Literary Review, Tryst, 3 A.M. Magazine, Scarlet Letters, Samsara Quarterly and others. Author of two poetry chapbooks --- the Gospel according to Thomas and for a ghost: poems and arguments against leaving --- kris is also Editor-in-Chief of the online poetry journal SOMETIMES CITY. He lives in New Jersey.

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