To Blame for Passion

By Kiera Baird

who makes the spark, 

the rock or the stick? 

the wood that’s fragile with texture, 

soft with jagged ends, 

weak with pointed pricks 

or the solid, sound, smooth surface 

of the cold and hard, 

composed and round and ready to be struck? 

one breaks with two fingers but cuts when it snaps

in dying, it lies in the blood of its killer. 

the other is defended from touch but is broken when dropped,

in shattering it is so distant from the hands 

that let it go down, down 

one is young and has a line of life that runs inside

(it doesn’t know it’s already losing it). 

the other has lived forever but has changed so much,

been scraped by so many years 

that it has lost most of itself. 

when they scrape, scrape, scrape across 

the life and hunger of one another 

who is cutting whom? 

where is the friction, who gets caught? 

who gets broken, and who does not? 

and then, carried away 

by the heat of the moment, 

who ignites? 

unable to contain the blades of fire 

someone lets them go and attacks or, perhaps, shares light

because it couldn’t keep it within itself 

it had to let the sparks go 

and then again, what does it all matter? 

we all know that in the end

it’s the stick that burns 

that carries the sparks and is turned by them to ashes

spiraling, buried by flames, being consumed by light

while the rock stays firm and blameless, distant, still

and unchanged 

and waiting, 

and cold.