Sacrificial Fire

Let us do this together on the coming solstice, the longest night of the year,

In spirit despite physical distance, let us be together when I burn the dress.

Both of us can build a sacrificial fire,

kindle both sets of flames with the best of sacred wood

as it is available, stack it beautifully, strike the match with love,

And let this holy smoke fill our souls to the brim with room to grow.

Letting go doesn’t have to hurt, doesn’t have to breed doubt to grow

like mildew in a beach house on Cape Cod, stronger by the year.

It can be done with love.

Here, let me show you how in this ritual with my white dress;

I’ll be as gentle with your heart and soul as you would

if you knew how to tend my fire.

How many times have we warmed ourselves in this fire?

How many times have we been afraid to tend it, to let it grow

instead giving up when it smolders like green wood,

walking away saying maybe next year,

never sharing the same address,

living separately in love.

Everyone says this isn’t love,

these fools who have never touched stardust nor walked through, much less lay down in fire.

They want a commotion about the dress?

I’ll give it to them, feed the symbol, make it grow

like a rosebush nurtured by a gifted gardener year after year.

They’ll regret saying they wish I would.

I’ll document this fire of sacred wood

where I’ll offer up the symbol of my first love

that I’ve kept through all these tears and all these years;

I’ll paint it with my grief and shame, let it bleed with jealousy and lies before I throw it in the fire,

dance naked while the flames of my love grow

and their futile lies and jealous words go up in smoke with my white dress.

This fire will be my only act of redress,

so I’ll only burn the sacred wood,

kindle the flames, and watch them grow.

They cannot burn away our love,

these jealous fools, these tongues of fire

wagging behind my back all these years.

So I will burn this dress, my love

with sacred wood in ritual fire

in the ashes pink camellias will grow and color my life the rest of my years.

I was absolutely terrified of recording myself reading my own work; this is my first attempt at this, and I will try to improve the visual aspect of this tonight.

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Below is a link to one of the first poems I wrote about this love, back in 1997, a decade into waltzing, tangoing, slam dancing, and pirouetting in and out of each other’s lives, shortly before or after I became pregnant with our daughter.