Starfire at Twenty-Three
A poem of imitation, smoke, first fire, and the people who like it.
Read the stitched line. Then unfasten the image.
Poem & studio photograph
FIRST FIRE / IMITATION / SMOKE
Sulphur material experiment · coal, ochre and sulphur on paper · studio documentation.
As revolutionaries often say:
one spark can set a prairie alight.
There were other revolutionaries too.
Was the moment I first lit a cigar at twenty-three
the moment this pursuit began?
I saw the habit of imitation from adolescence
crawl up my fingers,
reach my lips,
and become smoke:
the kind that cannot be held.
Will the world end in fire?
But I have always been with people
who like fire.