Toasting the Kiss of an Old Flame.

Frail coals, too orange to be Cool, stirred from boles of smoking cinders Rake my photographs behind hers Through the lips of memory. But stay, as you have often flagged with me: Too proud to bow and make an end, Asking the strings to bow and bow again. The hearth is brushed between the joints and A quire of motes by frottage speak: the Seasoned eaves rebound with haunts and Phantom champions battle weakly. A snifter lifted to the timbers —Dim monstrance of fulfilled desire Stilled by crossharched, russet embers— Fades with self-consuming fire.