Bathing Night

There were half-lit fuses never
quite arrived at anger so we skipped aside
the fracas skirted and held back
a tide with plaster-of-paris poured in.

Our tense faces waiting.

We were drying ourselves at the open flat mask
of the stove, our long flesh licked
by the hot dusk of fire.

The light brightly thrown up like
old water shouldering a fallen rock.
Our feeding of it;
bare.
brave.
recklessly alive.

The main key I grip memory with.

Our unswaddled bodies carping at the
hearthstone
for a fixed redemptive presence.

We never got there; our hopes windowed out
as poor matchstick girls drank
the sputtering light of a dying coal
in our guts.