eating lava

tell me who you are
when you reach air.
split-skeleton red.
we sit in a circle 
& wait for the earth beneath us
to fissure. erupt.
sometimes, my chest becomes
an ocean. all the cruise ships 
circling. the sea monsters
that will soon devour them.
my hunger is for something 
deep inside the earth.
for heat & fury. are you not
angry today? i wake up 
every morning with 
a snake that lives 
inside my skull. venomous.
i try to coax him out my ear.
this is what we walk around with.
a photo album of parking lots.
when we were magma 
we talked about nothing
but angles. spit into 
each other's mouths.
then there was the blue
of babies. rattling engine.
islands are born 
out of this kind of grief.
i am overflowing. 
imagining the ground i will
stand on. today they tell me
it is going to rain bullets.
tomorrow, i am supposed to
return a call on my answering machine
from a boy whose face was eaten
by locusts. he says,
"anything you can do to help
is appreciated." i take then
a spoon from the silver set
& walk barefoot to the scab.
pick it open to see
the lava. smoke billows
as spoon meets heat. 
a bite of my scalding worry.
i am ready to be fire.