Poem Number 2

My Friend the Torch

Alarmingly nerve wracking is what it is. This narrow head, small mouthed fire breathing brass colored dragon. It is my ill patient, only able to live on a special mix of gas in his protective gut. With its cumbersome tube like neck twisting upon itself, between my feet, crawling up my back and over my shoulder like a snake getting ready for the final squeeze. I find it difficult to trust this fire devil as a faithful assistant, but he has been there for me when I needed it. My friend is quick to anger and is a volatile and explosive killer. Ignorant of friend or foe, he can lash out without regard to who is in the way. When working on our jewelry he is my teammate, without him I wouldn’t be able to complete my designs. Once we were working on a pendant his blue flame leapt from his mouth heating up my design to a warm rose color. Then my faithful companion got sick. He had a belly full of his special food and when he went to spew forth his flame he choked and swallowed that beautiful blue flame. The fire burned down his throat and erupted from his gut severing his neck from his body. For a moment, time stood still - his special food feeding his flame, now out of control, engulfing our table and dancing up the walls as acrid black smoke filled the air. Alarms went off, the shrill noise puncturing my ear drums with intense pain. I grabbed another little monster I keep nearby. I jerked the rod I store in his neck out and forcefully squeeze his skull. He belches out a yellowish-white chalky cloud blanketing everything in the vicinity, extinguishing the flame and snuffing the life out of my old friend. Had he not choked, the wall would be in better shape, but because of his sacrifice he made sure that I got a new work area. I now have a younger friend, one that has evolved in the thirty plus years since my old friend was born. Yeah, sure he is new and can do tricks that my old friend cannot, but I still miss that little guy, the brass colored blue-flame breathing dragon. The reckless one who almost burned down my school.