Poem On: Day 10

Charmander (#004)

Always starts like this: a white coat
hands you a flame and shows you
the door to the world. On you now
to keep it burning. Everyone you meet

has a gift, a fight, advice in the same
translated monotone, a little different
each generation. Familiar roads hum
with lesson-traffic. Rocks and hedges

are hard borders now. Even the grass
fosters easy danger. Was everything
always an experience? If your flame
doesn’t learn it will gutter. Maybe die,

if the rumors of death are true
in this gentle game. If you teach
your flame, it will grow, which is
to say, change. Not be entirely

the flame you chose. Every end
to what you start is a kind of losing.