JC

kiss of the salamander

 

 i.

 

Six nights, flicker out;

seven candles consumed.

 

Black wick sorrows

smother a charcoal soul.

 

The taste of Rahab’s sin,

baptized in voodoo tears.

 

ii.

 

Dripping fingers begin to fall,

creeping down;

 

walls of wax crumble,

cold and motionless.

 

Wishing away the kiss

of Jericho’s folly.

 

iii.

 

Bloated worms devour their fill,

leave an empty corpse.

 

A vacant cocoon,

laced with tenuous silk;

 

a wandering whisper

lost on the wind.

 

iv.

 

Shrouded by a thin veil;

 

a broken smile

swings

from a sliver of sinew. 

 

Hope on a twisted noose;

 

pale Japanese maples,  

stripped of scarlet leaves.

 

v.

 

The sun wields a rusted shank

slicing open the amethyst sky.

 

It shines through me,

around me.

 

Disguised,

languid light

casting not a shadow,

nor lost in brazen clouds. 

 

I linger in these days,

where the shadows and light

are one.