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Weed Fire


by John Riley


Wind was a sorry excuse for force
by time the fox stopped running,
ending his escape of the failing fire,
and waited, hunched but never slinking,
inside the weeds and we, the three of us,
on the edge of the field, you and your brother
who would brag later he had tossed the match,
did not wait like the fox,
as though our existence had been threatened,
but with the shallow, yellow transience
of new humans disappointed (although I,
the only one who was afraid
of the joy of destruction
that could have been set free,
was the most disappointed)
that our smoldering
would soon be gone.
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