Hot Spot

 

Arson is never as unnoticeable,

its impact of less consequence,

than when you find the magnifying glass

where the kids dropped it in the garden,

and instead of picking it up 

and looking for some clues, 

you revisit a familiar mystery:

how training the convex lens

on the very center of a leaf

turns the tiniest portrait of the sun 

into the world’s quietest combustion,

a black iris around an unseeing eye

that nonetheless stares at you,

a taunt that feels all too true:

you look with longing at so much,

but perhaps never this closely — 

that your desire could actually burn.