OPEN FLAME 
A SUCCUBUS TALE 

I ignite the passions 

dormant in your chest 

like the pour of lava 

from a once dormant mountain. 

My dark eyes smoke 

like a dragon’s exhale. 

You breathe, “Amorminé,” 

and I speak with a writhing tongue. 

I am coal. 

I am fire. 

Slithering silence 

and flint-spark gestures; 

my hands curve, lure, 

and explore. 

I stoke your 

imagination 

with my lack 

of divination. 

I dress my roasted flesh 

not in virginal white, 

but a great swath of mesh 

that bends and twists 

just out of reach. 

The thick utterance 

of your voice, 

my azizam, my khoshgel. 

You are my kindling, 

my taunt like a bone 

on the end of a stick 

and I am the dog. 

Your rupturing hands 

grasp the Undertaker’s stiff 

and splintered cross.  

Cease your quaking. 

One of many; forsaken; 

think not of these. 

Sink your teeth 

into me. 

I am coal. 

I am fire. 

Fill your thirst 

as we wade 

the shores of Sheol 

Follow me. 

Taste my name 

on your brimstone lips. 

Expose yourself 

feast upon my satin skin 

burning, amorphous 

like liquefied mercury, 

bubbling silver

and slippery as sin. 

Shade has crawled 

over your Biblical scrawls. 

This succubus is marking 

your days on its soft leather case. 

I am coal. 

I am fire. 

Mon désir… 

pour ton plaisir, 

I yield. Come. 

See where my lust takes you… 

A tombstone on Earth; 

a kingdom in Hell. 

I am coal. 

I am fire.