The Fire Ritual

In the restaurant`s low murmurs
bright as a fallen angel,
she smiles in a sunlit halo.
Absently brushes the white shell
of his hand.

He is death suited, a dark Mephistopheles
against the startling expanse of table.
Slowly he turns, blends into
a perfection of shadows.

Through the muted jazz
a fragment of laughter
catches the air
disperses among the jasmine.

Then another smile.
The ubiquitous touching of hands,
her smoothing of a rogue
wisp of hair,
the gradually unfolding desire.

As flickering candlelight
dapples the room,
he raises a glass,
drinks in the sight of her.

Outside I listen
to a straggle of Glasgow rain
blowing her name
across a glistening wound
of street.

Through this alcohol invulnerability,
I watch the darkness grow and grow.
And I burn endlessly.