Pictures from a Garden Bonfire

A wave of flame, a wave of pain: From the initial blast;
singing, singeing – an intense hot gale rushed past.
Seared and cooked, and knocked backwards off feet;
imagined – a mushroom cloud from a front row seat.

A flick of a match, the start of a fire the mind remembers.
Old floorboards, building site debris, burning embers,
and an aerosol can that detonated in my face.
The flash reached knuckles first, then forehead and chin.
Crusted in soot, it left its trace under the skin.

In a hospital bed, residual heat came through wave after wave.
Injected with morphine, I flew on a voyage to the centre of the Sun;
Each crest and trough a little less before the next.
And through this journey, calm breath prevailed until it was done.

Dead and dying skin peeled off in sheets under sterilised gauze.
My entire lower lip came off in one piece at breakfast one morning.
Beneath this bandaged chrysalis – a strange butterfly of unknown form and haphazard cause.
It might be necessary to accept a new image of the self – the nurse’s warning.
The mask came off and an old skin shed – a new self emerging.