by Todd Dillard

Did you know she liked fire?
The warmth yes but the burning more so.
The delight of a terrible draft
folded into a crane
and spiked into a hearth
some wrist-pale January morning.
She loved the little black clouds
that formed at the parchment’s edge,
then roiled over the disheveled
lines like a stampede dust.
And the smoke drifting out her chimney–
everyone agreed it waggled like a robe’s loose thread
which, if you yanked hard enough,
would unveil Death’s pale ankles
and he would yelp like a dog
dreaming of carriage-sized rabbits.

Todd Dillard’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including American Poetry Review, Guernica, Waxwing, Fairy Tale Review, and The Adroit Journal. His debut collection Ways We Vanish (Okay Donkey Press) was a finalist for the 2021 Balcones Poetry Award. His chapbook Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance is forthcoming from Variant Literature. He is a Poetry Editor at The Boiler.