Arsonist's Delight

I

Amidst the mayflies

And the cattails,

Men shrouded in an

Eternal faith

Danced with the gnats

And the crocodiles

And the Fire

White peaked cloaks pranced

Like albino cormorants

Breached and searching

For some surface dwelling

Minnow,

separated from

the pack

My father was a dancer amongst

the Fire,

The choreographer

Of their garish Formations

He told of their feasts

Their bulging goiters

Their quivering livers

II

Bésalu,

That is where my neck bulged,

Pulsed like a king bull frog

In late July

Where a deep, gestational

Urge to consume became

all-encompassing

A wayward Spaniard led

Me into the hall

Where the ballooned bodies

Of the Ortolan sate ripe

To teach me the satisfaction of

The Fire

Our feast commenced

With the rainfall of

Mayflies,

Who had seen enough

An adjacent criminal

Turned his nose,

Casting a grotesque shadow

across the Table

Each movement of his head

A rehearsed

Dance with The Fire

I was Shrouded,

Spear-like bones

Punctured my tongue

Curled talons calcified

My taste buds,

Reducing them to placid scales

The Beak camped

Between two of my molars,

Breached and

Looking upwards as if to

Question the eternal faith

As if looking

For release from my fiery

Grounding molars

As if to question

The pulse beneath

My cloak

[i] Ortolan is a nocturnal songbird illegally captured for consumption; the meal is traditionally prepared by gouging out the eyes, force feeding, and drowning the bird in a vat of Armagnac brandy and consuming the Ortolan whole while veiled by a white cloth as to not only keep an aromatic atmosphere, but to hide the shame of such cruelty from the eyes of God.