Carabosse
by John Walser

1.

1. Terra cotta pot paraffin flame night:

1. in a hidden fruit market side stall
2. a soot and smudge kerosene
3. street performer fedora
4. electric guitar sings red wine mud
5. and French cigarette ballads:
6. his voice warped and plastic
7. as a melted doll’s legs:
8. as a spindle rub.

1. Funereal suit fire artists:
2. their faces cinder creased:
3. their fingernails: dark
4. as the pond water mascara
5. of a horse’s eye:

1. I trace the alleys I already walked
2. as they lit globes, fuses:

1. their hunched shadows:
2. the silhouettes
3. of wicked fairy godmothers:

1. their hunched shadows:
2. the silhouettes of rats.

2.

1. Fire loves a lead pipe vacuum:
2. the oxygen rush into the tube
3. when it is lifted:
4. the spouted geyser.

1. The dark vent though closes plumage:

1. no fleur: no symmetry: no pattern:

1. just the flaring flecks of a polished stone:
2. just the scalded hot spots scale crackling:
3. just the primordial behind the singe calm:
4. just the thin sleep of smoke.

3.

1. Over the Humber: pier hung lantern lights
2. reflect like wooden boats midnight current
3. pulled and floating away from shore:

1. when the wick flicker finally finds paper:
2. the framework for fire:

1. each is a jumping fish:
2. silver as metal filings:
3. that brands a small blaze scar
4. onto the surface of the water:

1. together: a constellation of sailors
2. sextant dizzy and lost:

1. when they finally burn down:
2. sizzling blanks that disappear
3. like wishful coins into the river.

4.

1. Closer to the fire: we all stand
2. closer to the fire: I smell the fuse
3. closer to the fire: I feel like clay
4. closer to the fire: the bark coals
5. the kettle glow: the cast iron sear.

1. We want and don’t want
2. the tribulation of heat:
3. of guttering: of scorch.

5.

1. If the moon tonight drags tides
2. what like a spinning wheel lures fire?