The Art of Combustion

Plain as the stone on your face.

Row your safety to napalm

notes, afraid as flame shrinking

from water ‘n’ crackling for air.

                                    There is a life

in chemical reactions. Raw materials

colliding, combusting, and accruing

sedimentary corrosion.

                                    Moving elements collide,

redefine neutrons in an atomic closet, abide

in particle performances and material matters—

The touch

                        Of Mark Pauline’s fingers,

caught between machines

and the nature of unstable

science’s elemental tenements,

                                     both positive

and negatively charged.

                        1/2015

                        Florence