Bonfire Night with Millie

squatting on my heels
splayed fingers of my right hand
sinking into mud
your throne my right thigh
you wave your ‘glow stick’
your left hand holding mine, lightly,
in the Kennel Fields.

your wand flexible,
like the stem of a water lily,
striped, luminous you run your finger
over the arc: yellow, green
red, you stroke the fire
works into life, stir the air,
‘I am making them!’

on the black screen they sear and soar:
Chinese chrysanthemums, Roman
candles, Catherine wheels, rockets,
Golden Rain- shoals of darting fish
phosphorescent, opalescent
a flock of silver birds skews
into darkness, their song of war

fare of fire the pyres of bone
fires roar: we saw the stiff sheep,
Catherine alive you were spun, torched
a hoop of fire, the sky hounds jumped
'the loud ones', closing my eyes:
cannons, grenades, mortars, and now
dirty bombs, human bombs, just thrown

(oh, tread carefully!) the shells.
I open to Millie's shore
her hand rests still, so lightly
in mine, leading me
we spell out fast blasts
focussing fluorescent wordswe conjure storming angels