I burn your letter

At the kitchen stove

Starting with the corner

The flames erase your signature

Cauterizing even the word love

Stretching up, the fire

Finds substance in my fingers

It consumes my hand,

My wrist, my arm, my shoulder

My body burns in the kitchen

Still holding the empty phone

And this burning promise of a letter

The fire spreads across the telephone wires

Destroying every house in this exchange

Flames form pillars and whirlwinds

Igniting everything in their dance

The city burns, except, of course,

Your building Apartment 38 stands

Untouched, with a forceful solemnity

In the middle of endless constructions of flame

Within, icy and safe from all this,

You carefully compose your next letter