That woman’s long foot I was setting on fire,
wrapped up in red damp drape to retard the glow
of her bunions like coal, the hardening corns,
wart pads with the fresh stink of Cuba unfurled.
When light goes out she leaves volcanic imprints
in heelprints of other eruptions. Lights up
and she wheelbarrows marketbound on both hands,
buying meat with her ankles. One stays home, burns
as a child. One kicks what has made the meat wrong.
One’s feet are lava that burn the woman’s feet.
Burn the feet and you burn the streets they walked on,
burn the boat they sailed on, the ocean it rode.
Burn all these and she never came with a name
I mispronounce, crying it with the wrong stress
when she brings no water to relieve the burn.
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