apple burned.

i guess i wanted to swim in the lanterns,
i guess they weren't cold enough to breathe.
swimming was easier anyway but the lanterns couldn't have held me
they were round and red and rippling. apples with attitude.
so far, they had won. they had won the night from me. even though my skirt was red,
i don't think it was red enough.

if i swam in the red light of the lanterns my skirt would catch on fire.
i suppose it wouldn't matter anyway, because life would be red.
it depends on how you think of it.

i brought apple slices in my purse and drank a mango.
the apple was supposed to be for eating, 
but i sacrificed it to the lantern gods instead.
as for the mango, well i drank it.

when the apple flamed up inside the lantern i cackled,
pure joy for fruit juice and fire,
for what else is there in this world?
i think maybe the people riding the subway were confused.
one of them smiled
and bowed.

he was probably bowing to the juice, which was smoking in the sky and becoming 
a ghost. of the night.
which was gone now.

when i walked home it was like one, in the morning, and the apartment smelled like apples.
i ripped up my skirt and hung it, the strips, one by one, like fluttering flags, out on my balcony.
i hoped one would fly away and find someone.
perhaps the man from the subway.

i went to bed soaked in chamomile leaves and sighed, happy.

i think the smoke from the apples burned in my window
at night
because when i woke up it was a red morning, my hair flopped over my face and me holding my breath and trying
to burn.