burns had caressed him— late at night laughing, lying on couches in the fuzzy yellow light of tequila with tattooed boys and slow long-haired women (oh they get their hips down to that earth when they walk) yeah—after some extreme- ly illegal shots of testosterone, some unexplained disappearances into the light that glints in the liquor; after the woman had slung off her hips pouting, protesting the energy in the room— then the flame game could begin, because you have to show something to be in and it's gotta be something they can see— so what's a little skin when the heart drags daily from steel talons? Sober you would scorn this fisted ritual, but tendons pop hard under skin, flame brings focus and pain and all that fierceness is no enmity it is awareness, recognition. ...then later, down by the tv in the basement, slumped before some great cultural icon, in the middle of a much more mystical substance, she lurks: waistband of her blue-jeans below the hipbone, creating an un- intentional vibration in the drunk.