A New Light by Ali Znaidi

What fire gave me was a new light.
The music of its dancing embers
was not a phantom.
Flashes of crimson flame ascended the sky.
I just perished in them
the way ice-cream thaws.
The tarry storm abated
& the glowing flies started licking the ice-cream.
 What fire gave me was a tickling sensation—
an urgent itch
 to destroy remnants of the black threads
that had baited me,
& to skim for lanterns
in the abysmal darkness.