Flame Language

How long do I have to talk with flame-language
about burning and being burned? How long?
~ Rumi, “The Oven’s Question”

I am trying to understand the way
Morning light absorbs your skin, that distant fire,
Turns your highlights blue. You lap me huge

With sky. At high noon the back of your neck
Speaks crackle sheen with no metaphors, strikes new
Language licking up tongues in me, quickening silence.

I can’t wipe these flames from you! Burning
My hands again and again in the same naked place,
I walk away with prism palms, sucking my fingers.

2013