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Hagiography of Brother Fire and Sister Smoke by Rigoberto González


 

  1. Brother Fire

 

Feed me. Feeeed me. These are not

the only words it knows but they’re

the only words it needs. And most times,

it’s two words too many. Most times,

 

it’s coaxed awake easily and on instinct

grinds the air between its teeth. Wild

creature, a stomach in a coat of quills that

chews through anything within its reach.

 

Was it the caveman who first discovered

its potential—weapon or tool? Was it

the caveman who first found out it could

possibly be tamed? The others saw a fireball

 

careening down the hill, the creature fastened

like a second skin, a screech so singular

because this pain was new though it would be

an affliction a second body suffered through

 

before the sun would set again. Oh sad

addiction to destruction, to the voyeuristic

impulse to witness mass flower and wilt

into a shadow of itself. Oh dark ghost.

 

Prometheus was a fool to trust

the mortals who squander ingenuity

on ammunition. Even the man who

first held the wooden flute eventually

 

beat his neighbor with it, or so the story

goes. And when his instrument sang

out of tune he fed it to the creature who,

mad with insatiable hunger, ate the musician

 

too. The neighbor raised a bowl of water

to his lips and smiled as only the wicked

do. The gods looked over at the Titan

with his liver gouged and thought:

 

What pity to waste such a gift on

the petty, how tragic this magic turned

curse. When he figured out how to burn

things to the ground out of spite, revenge

 

or the sheer perverse pleasure of causing

harm, that’s when the human and this

monstrosity became inseparable. Thus

the history of fire became the history of man.

 

Man, imperious and arrogant, named it

to claim it, to deceive himself into

believing it was under his command.

Incinerator, he called it, Purifier, Blaze,

 

Consumer of Detritus and Waste. But

this creature answered to many other

names as well: Arson, Napalm, Immolation,

Fire Bomb, Dragon Breath, though in the end

 

its purpose was the same: to feed.

Feeed me, it begs, and its keeper complies

with cornfield, sugar cane, mesquite.

The more it eats, the more it craves,

 

mirroring its master’s appetite so

greedy its hunger is mostly whim and

indulgence. Feeeed me, it whines, though

if the human ear could listen it would hear

 

Neeeed me. Need me, as in, The want

is all you, you belly aching baby, you

bored glutton, you bow-legged bitch

bastard son of a shit-binging baboon.

 

That’s right: you shove everything you

hate down my goddamn throat so how

else do you expect me to fucking talk,

you overstuffed bile sausage, you bloated  

 

sac of bloody buffalo balls? The insult

darkens into carbon and drifts out of

earshot, just another disappearing act

for a thing to never be. Selective erasure:

 

refusing to remember, aiming to forget.

And that’s the reason, Fire, you’ve become

man’s favorite pet. Prized in the cage of his

black stone heart you’ll never die of neglect.

 

  1.  Sister Smoke

 

Call me Sister Smoke, groan that rises from

the burning wound, Brother Fire’s fetid afterbirth,

its stink a sting—a thorn stuck in your throat—

 

the more you struggle to set it free the quicker

you choke. Once I come upon you its best

to let it be. There is beauty in surrender—even

 

the blank-eyed fish embraces resignation in

the net and halts its flailing, locks itself into a stare

that beckons, Dare to love me just like this.

 

Don’t let my reputation frighten you, I’m

more seduction if you will, I’m less the predator

the gossips make me out to be. My twin initiates

 

the kill and somehow I’m the villain. What

unbecoming accusation, what travesty.

If you really want to know my story, hear me

 

out instead of running from me. Come.

Get comfortable. Get closer.

Once upon a time

 

before I was  a scavenger I was a messenger.

Before I was disgraceful I was the fateful

waving of plumes in the air, merciful signal

 

that warned all living things Beware the beast

has left its lair. Not everyone escaped its path

but plenty did and word passed down

 

through generations that if by chance one

caught my dance on the horizon surely

there was danger there. Beware! It wasn’t

 

quite affection but attention pleased me just

the same. My warnings were never called

heroic but I felt rewarded—instant recognition.

 

Before infamy you could say I was famous.

How I basked in my individuality. My body

seen apart from my brother’s vile identity.    

    

But fate can be so cruel, that’s the rule.

The pride of presence comes with a price to pay.

Consider the royal forest that withers its leaves

 

when a wave of boorish rust weathers it—

a rotting graveyard ripe for Brother Fire’s

ire. Consider the arrogant elk that locked horns

 

with a branch. I came upon this most idyllic scene,

which lasted seconds, until my brother cooked

the animal, then stripped the tree and picked

 

the carcass clean. Nature’s beauty is ephemeral;

I’m a natural thing, as is my twin. Yet memory

clings to aftermath longer than it does

 

to the calm before upheaval. When man

domesticated Brother Fire to perpetrate his evil

I became guilty by association. I became

 

party to the rising temperatures, the droughts

and the pollutions. I lost my role as harbinger

with the industrial age and every iron cage

 

became my prison. A soaring spirit held captive

becomes reactive. If I asphyxiate and suffocate

you it’s because I reciprocate the deed. See?

 

I’m simply an entity misunderstood. I only do

what you do to me. Since I’m no longer free,

the cloud of me becomes the shroud of you.

 

     

 


Rigoberto González is the author of 18 books of poetry and prose. His awards include Guggenheim, NEA, USA Rolón fellowships, the Before Columbus American Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He sits on the board of trustees of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and is currently professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.



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