HOW TO GENERATE HEAT

A woman rises up under her man
and the world disappears. Shadows
sweep across his face and swallow the room
like Atlantis or Pompeii. Disasters like that
should stay packed away in a history book,
hidden in the back of the stacks someplace
where people who don’t want to know
don’t have to look.

The man lights a candle and brings it to bed.
A bright spot blooms behind the silhouette
of the woman, fully dressed now, leaning
out the window. Someone in the street below
is smoking a cigar, but the woman can’t see
what it cost him: his hands are full of ashes,
his fingers licked with flame.