The Burning Girl

While the tennis ball went back and forth in time

A girl was burning. While the tonic took its greeny

Acid lime, a girl was burning. While the ruby sun fell

From a cloud’s bent claws and Wimbledon was won

And lost, we sprawled along the shore in chairs,

We breathed the azure airs alongside

A girl with the thinnest arms all scarred and scored

With marks she’d made herself —

She sat with us in flames

That not all saw or saw but couldn’t say at risk

Of seeming impolite. And later we’d all think

Of the monk who’d doused himself with gas,

Lit a match, then sat unmoving and alert amid

Devouring light. She didn’t speak. She touched

No aspect of our silly selves.

I was the awkward guest everybody hardly knew.

She was an almost ghost her mother saw

Erasing the edges of herself each day

Smudging the lines like charcoal while her parents

Redrew her secretly into being over and

Again each night and dawn and sleepless

All years long. Having seen that mother’s love,

I testify: It was ocean endless. One drop could’ve

Brought to life the deadest Christ, and she

Emptied herself into that blazing child with all her might

And stared a hundred million miles into

The girl’s slender, dwindling shape.

Her father was the devoted king of helicopter pad

And putting green. His baby burned as we

All watched in disbelief.

I was the facile friend of friends insisting on a hug

Who hadn’t been along for years of doctors, wards,

And protocols. I forced her sadness close. I said

C’mon let’s hug it out. Her arms were white

Birch twigs that scissored stiffly at my neck till she

Slid on. That night we watched

Some fireworks on the dewy lawn for it was

Independence Day. Soon after, she was gone.

She was the flaming tower we all dared

To jump from. So she burned.