All that is now left of you
is most of your legs, the
bottom half of your trousers
and all of your shoes, socks, feet.
The rest, though, was fire,
you burned right through
the wood and linoleum,
melting the wires beneath,
stopping everything
(the electric clock curled
like a Dali pocket-watch, curled
right up like the western wicked witch,
bent nearly around the hour
of your bright fire flash)
Some say this was
less than spontaneous, believe
you must have at least touched flame,
that flesh then became a candlewick,
slow-burned from the outside in,
caught in the kiln
of oxygen and ignition.
(or was it just friction,
the sulfurous head of your soul
pulling across the tip of this
coarse world,
like a match?)
Brian Baker (he/him) lives in London, Ontario, Canada He was the winner of Poetry London's Open Theme contest and has work forthcoming in the June edition of Cathexis Northwest Press. Twitter: @runstopwrite