Red/unit

It is a red slash unit
And I am the lucky girl
With a propane torch
Strapped to her back
And a match

Drea Burbank on the Dalton Hotshots, 2003. © 2022 Todreamalife, LLC used with permission.

And I will set that shit ablaze inside a glorious summer day
Full of flame and black smoke
And I do not care if I know how to get out of it
Because I am the lucky girl
With the gift of fire

And it will burn burn burn
A night and a day and
Forever if you let me
Drip torches, and helicopters with exploding balls, and 22 flare guns, and a
Terratorch
A terratorch! You let me spit flame in napalm
Widening arc flying through the air
Sighing with content

I make small circles with gasoline in dry grass and watch the wind
The wind takes it up the canyon
And sparks fly they fly through the air to more sparks in
Whorling patterns of
Orange bright
Glorious destruction

Ash will come later
For now I am content with heat
And the aliveness of burning
Transmutation of one dry thing
To another live thing
To a thing that is empty
And nascent for replanting
In the spring

Or never, because ash has its own haunting beauty years after the flame is gone.

So don’t let me near your red/heart
Because I will set it aflame
If only to watch it burn.

For Dalton

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