"Boy" (Poem)

Boy

Solitude has begun to burn the log of self 


but the two have not become the unity 


of which ash is the visible half-truth. 


Foolish ash, who prides yourself 


on being the only child of the marriage 


of log and flame. You can only 


sing through sisters of air. But dualism 


denies debate. Log turns ash. Flame becomes air. 


No connection but immaculate conception. 


Foolish ash of the unassailable future 


Disguising yourself as a log 


to "protect" the trees

presenting solitude as a forest fire

which means less to the forest

than to the wooden houses not yet built

as if one can see without eyes 


or that all that one can see is eyes. 


Surely they're mine. Everything is. 


Surely pain is an illusion, 


and the loss which makes a tree ash 


without becoming a log 


may warm those by the fireplace 


in the summer house of the sun 


in which we live and die each second 


eluding the censors for sure 


and eluding the senses we redefine
as body tingles a word like mind.

Chris Stroffolino 

(an earlier version appears in

http://www.dcpoetry.com/anthology/254)