Scott Keeney

CONCUPISCENT FIRE

1

Fire loves a match head the way dreams
love our skulls when we lay them down
on pillows or sofas or blankets on the floor
in the living room on New Year’s Eve
where we’re always a couple of twenty-
nothings watching PBS’s ten-part documentary
on the history of rock & roll, from its humble
beginnings in the ’50s to Lollapooza
in the ’90s. We have our own classic footage,
Starflower. Kiss me against the kitchen counter,
kiss me to the gurgling Keurig brewing
a Caribou K-cup . How concupiscent is that?
Move me like a cannonball. Ignite me
with your tongue. Wrap me in your hair
like the January sun, in your perfume of flames,
that I may bury my skull in your end of days.

2

Fire doesn’t love anything and dreams just want
to fuck with us. It doesn’t matter where we
sleep or how deep. Holidays are memorable—
so? I’m looking forward to the heyday of
uncreative rock and roll. The way water loves
anything—except when you go to bed
without saying good night to me, it hates that—
proves it’s hard to go through school without
a dream, just as it’s hard to dream without
being tired. The moon is an open road
so let’s ride. Just kidding: you can’t get there
from here, snap. Love is a concupiscent itch
that most of the time can’t be scratched.
For love, it’s best to walk an inconspicuous mile
and leave the huffing and puffing to those
who would rather wave their arms than smile.

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Scott Keeney‘s works have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, Everyday Genius, failbetter, Gobbet, Juked, Mudlark, New York Quarterly, Poetry East, Shampoo, Tinge, UCity Review, and elsewhere.