Ghazal for Fire by Mary Ann Honaker

Image / Moein Moradi

GHAZAL FOR FIRE

Dry brush gives up its many souls to fire.

Small planes fly over: retardant dousing fire.

A soul when smelted smells like doubt and ash.

Is hell the place we're purified by fire?

I dreamed I walked a Fibonacci spiral.

The result was null; notes thrown into fire.

I wrote my trauma on a paper shred.

Haunted still, I lit the corner on fire.

Haunted still, I let it burn on a plate. 

The plate was scarred; the back deck smelled of fire.

I gave hate to the Universe, and it

gifted me back my love's defiant fire.

© Mary Ann Honaker

Mary Ann Honaker

Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023), and the forthcoming Night is Another Realm Altogether (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026). Her poems have appeared in Bear Review, DIAGRAM, JMWW, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Rattle.com, Solstice, Sweet Tree Review, Tuskegee Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.

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