William J. Neumire

BURNING

The heat has to come from somewhere.
The quartered log lies like a cadaver
And waits for extraction.

That’s what happens, you know.
The flame separates the wood
Like a cold hand pushing apart the knees.
And then it begins to remove things:
Oxygen, color, heft.

And that’s what feeds it, like a parched
Drunk whose beer only makes him more thirsty.
Each ebb of fire takes more, clears a space
Inside the source where the wood blackens
Without, nothingness rushing to the wound
Like the teeming blood under a purpled bruise.
It goes on like this -- like something unexaminable-
For however long it takes to tear a thing apart,
To dig at it from within until it becomes
Its shadow, and heaps on the ground
Like ash.

Location:	Brockport, New York
Occupation:	Preschool Teacher
Email:	wjneumire@msn.com
Publications:	Adirondack Review, Poetry Midwest, Zuzu's Petals, 2River, AugustCutter, Blue Mesa Review, Melange, Pierian Springs, ThreeCandles, Stirring, etc.
Chapbook:	Resonance of Kin (forthcoming from 2River View)

- February 2003 - Tattoo Man of Coney Island After Reading Heaney's Field Work Herd that friday, april five Burning Great Books Measuring Longing The Day the Ice Starts Out - Stirring's Best Anti-Love Poems - the disgruntled women's chorus sings accompaniment on the beta male blues Useful Valentine (Funny how we assumed) Vacancy Poem For Maggie A Strange Thing