The Book of Burnings

We are the burnt; we are the burning.

Woodcuts do no justice to this agony of ending

bodies that melt behind a curtain of fire,

sweet flesh for the eating -

the devouring - by flames

with slow savouring tongues

of suffering,

licking us away, layer by layer.

We are the contrary; we are the awkward,

whose thoughts spill from mouths

too quick to stop -

possibilities floated

in airy words – heresy

they call hypothesising

the dangerous theory

of difference.

We are the lost, we are the damned.

Watch us transform into another way

of unbeing, unbelieving.

Rake over embers

to find bone and ash,

release the memory

of our enquiring minds;

we write in smoke on the wind.