How I Will End the War

I will catch a rocket in the air and fly with it
into the sky. I will be a tracer, a beautiful line;
Between my thighs the chemical witchery

will burn, burn for vengeance. But I will soar
up and still up. I will be the glow, the memory
of dates eaten in a violet twilight back when love

seemed a power to reckon with. In my hands
the fuse will glitter like a sparkler drawing patterns
against the summer dark. Remember?

I will not drop. I will go so high that the sky
will darken and the stars will lift their startled heads
and the beautiful blaze of anger will surge through

my fingers and my nipples and still higher and higher
while the fountain of sparks runs for the touchhole;
and when we explode into tatters

The quiet evening will be marked by lovely
falling stars that are little pieces of me, and children
will point at them, at the tiny dropping fires winking out.