Montag by Kara Goughnour

          
          There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine,

          to make a woman stay in a burning house;

          there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.

          ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451


It was a pleasure to burn

with you, eyes a black,

eaten thing, both scarce

and scared.

A pleasure to see deeper,

charred wafer-thin pieces

gone, slate clean. To think black

eyes iridescent; catch

a peek of beetle-green.

To know bright June light,

refracting off the window pane,

giving sight to my page,

is fire enough for me.

Kara Goughnour is a queer writer and documentarian living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the 2018 winner of the Gerald Stern Poetry Award and has work published or forthcoming in Third Point Press, Riggwelter Journal, The Southampton Review, and others. Follow her on Twitter @kara_goughnour or read her collected and exclusive works at karagoughnour.com.