Set Yourself on Fire

by Maggie Golston

Exactly what does it take to have grown

from being a camera to being a gun?

Way down below the ocean is where

I want to be, in analog with the air’s

crack: a chemical burn, tubes of wee

explosions. What if little by little

we never meet again? In patterns, linked

like birds, parallel or out of sync.

Just hang on. I’m always on my way to you

as if the hundredth meeting could undo

this harbor gone rusted with birds

left to draw circles of caws into words

you’re spitting like teeth not pearls

or promises, just something you said.

Maggie GolstonMaggie Golston is a poet and songwriter from Tucson, Arizona. Her work has also appeared in Ploughshares, Spork, Sonora Review, and on Kore Press. Her album, Spaceman, was released in 2005. She teaches writing and humanities at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona.