I am never tired.
I am consumed by the what-ifs.
A 100 pound mother in boxing gloves with starry eyeteeth.

You can not tell me to let it die.
I will not let it die.

My furnace is stoked with yesterdays newsprint
dirty fingers licked by white sleeves,
silver smoke smothering all rational thought.

But rational thought is a white flag,
and I am a-boil in shaky embers and the bluest of ash.
I am aware that we are both a-simmer
vein deep in illogical warfare.

But I will not accept the prophetic precision
with which you stick your self made kewpie doll.
Make no mistake this is a race
Desperately filled with
red poppies, red poppies
ground into artificial blood.

But I will not be detracted from my stoking,
gathering tiny fairy twigs and discarded birthday ribbon.
I am a swollen bonfire
belching a message to the sky:
There will be no scorched earth today.
No more clotted dirt and darkened eye.

I am so very, very busy.
You see this fire, your fire,
I will not let it die.