18
Four poems by ana prundaru
Explaining Rain to an Arsonist
in the name of stepping out the
unmagical friendly fire inside
my thumbs arrange themselves
to a river, pushing steady in your
direction and the stream spreads
the smell of grass on your hair
while the sky's secrets are safe
with you, since you have no tongue
you think: death the mainstream
if you had magic, you'd be so
mainstream, but you have never
tasted kerosene, saw your eyes
shoot poison-green in their
betrayed beauty and felt the rain
drumming hard and harder in
the ditch fort of your puppet show