John Martino
My Latest Flame
My latest flame lights my fire.
Squad car blazing like a pyre.
She looks at me with a bad desire.
Burning and burning in the widening gyre.
“Smell that acquittal
dipped in blues. A lit
fuse,” she cues. Cops gone
wild. She’s quick to disabuse.
Been raised in a cage
since she was a child.
Still carries the scars
from the first time she smiled.
She tells Death with a badge
to reach for the stars.
My latest flame is shot full of ire.
Incendiary tongue, conflagration choir.
She’s experienced, lets me stand beside her.
Together we watch the fire get higher.
John Martino‘s poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, HEArt Online, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, and the anthology Envy, Vol. 6 from a 7-volume series on the 7 deadly sins by Pure Slush Books. He has worked as a teacher and tutor of English for 22 years. An avid traveler, Martino currently resides in Hong Kong with his wife, Shelley.
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