I suppose she burned because the night was hot
—the window closed, the sheets too close—

but when her eyes and heart and limbs took flame
and she belched cinders into the night,
perhaps it was because she saw him there
—closeted in walls of paper and ink—
his baffled idealism, his dark
and self-destructive bent.

He was the Revolution,
Torch and Candle in the darkness
and perhaps

she was only kindling after all.

He drank a glass of deep red wine,
knowing nothing about her, or how
her ashes blew in the wind.