Fire Eater

It's enough to extinguish these stars on sticks,
my coated mouth quelling them all at once,
while the heads in front bounce like candlewicks,
each simple device
a crude interstice
to trap them with fire. And every dunce
has come to gape and wonder at my tricks,
at barewaisted me, swallower of suns.

It's enough to be the master of small flame,
every meal a molten fist to my wounds
of cracked, sutured lips and eyelids,
lame with singes that sting
at each offering.
My eyes hold limula, stripped arctic runes
of night, where no one can warm to my name.
It's not enough to be barren, a swallower of moons.