Wildfire as a Psychological Survey

by Savannah Tate

It’s a wildfire but he reaches into it with bare hands

and goosebumps, like any decent brother.

He laughs as he does it, laughter like a knocked-

over ink pot spilling ink into all those crazy

flames and staining the silence like ink stains

paper or cloth or probably the underside of

your skin, if you were to peel it off like you peel

an orange and turn it inside out. Laughter

staining silence, do you see it? Do you see the

wildfire’s gotten past his skin and into his meat

now, all those ligaments and chalky bones sucking

up the heat of the inferno like anemic vampires

while his twin-moon eyes wax and wane.

Crescent, gibbous, full. He looks unfamiliar

but so familiar. You could be him. He could be

your brother, any decent brother. Reaching into

that fire as if into the jagged skyline of New York

or Tokyo, skyscrapers like teeth in a maw that

swallows galaxies one by one. The heat is

reaching him now, do you see it? His laughter

trickles away like paper boats on a river as big

as this life. His moon eyes blink and you see

all their dried seas filled with opals. The craters

of his flesh brim with fire and like any good

saint he lets it rewrite him into a face

someone someday might die to kiss goodnight.