His overalls are fire-ribboned
gas-fueled and then gone.
She swats out flames bare-handed
and their skin marries in blisters.
Threads of her palms settle
in the gelled red craters of his body.
She carries him to the doctor’s house
then returns to her room behind the school.
The next day she wears church gloves
to chalk perfect letters on the boards.
When students, squirrely with gossip,
ask her what happened, she is hard silence.
The boy dies twelve days later.
The story is already gone.
