I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin. - Margaret Atwood

She stubs out her cigarette in the brown glass ashtray, then settles herself against him, ear to his chest. She likes to hear his voice this way, as if it begins not in his throat but in his body, like a hum or a growl, or like a voice speaking from deep underground. Like the blood moving through her own heart: a word, a word, a word.

She talks with wolves, without knowing what sort of beasts they are:
Where have you been all my life? they ask.
Where have I been all my life? she replies.

Eating Fire

Eating fire

is your ambition:
to swallow the flame down
take it into your mouth
and shoot it forth, a shout or an incandescent
tongue, a word
exploding from you in gold, crimson,
unrolling in a brilliant scroll

To be lit up from within
vein by vein

To be the sun