Smothered Fire

When love becomes a smothered fire,
The heat and smoke are trapped inside;
As here, contained within ourselves,
Desire and poison, both, go unremarked upon

The dance we dance is formal now:
You know your steps and I know mine.
We each perform our silent parts,
But how we leave the floor with grace, I couldn’t say

The music we once heard is gone,
There’s no one else left on the floor;
Just you, and I, these dishes, and
A series of banal cliches we share, politely

The dance that is a dinnertime;
Our words, wet blankets on the fire
Of what was once spontaneous, and new —

The ritual of rinsing off the plates that we just used,
The empty glasses stored away to clean another day,
Our food, detritus scraped into a bag –

As after every dance, there’s someone
Has to turn the lights off

Who just might catch
The last slight glow
Of smothered fire

Author: Owen "Beleaguered" Servant

Owen "Beleaguered" Servant (a/k/a Sibelius Russell) writes poetry mostly, with an occasional pause to have a seizure. View all posts by Owen "Beleaguered" Servant