She begins with the Business Section, crumpling
The heads of corporations into their flammable
Numbers. She makes a pile of these.
Then she becomes an architect of kindling, stacking
the Lincoln Logs into a model of Richmond that
will soon suffer Sherman’s March.
Mill ends she weaves in, and double-
split oak, setting the place for a feast
of fire , the table and the meal one and the same.
Born at the sulfur tip of May, she is
herself a light green flame
tossing off her Diamond matches to spark the world of trees.
So, she speaks its language, and through her
solar plexus: Black smoke is slander-
shimmering heat waves flatter her skill.
Her brow and cheeks smeared with soot
her asbestos hands conducting air
to its place inside the pyre. See her footprint in the
ashes, see her fingers in the flames, feel her
message in this heat.
