Self-Portrait as Barn-Burner

Despy Boutris

So let’s say the night is just a night, not a wound, 
not a blackhole of nothingness: you won’t see me

lying in the grass, wetted with fog, but rather lightning bugs 
flickering above, air soiled with the scent

of peaches. It’s summer. You won’t feel this wind-
          chill and stench of soil, only the light breeze

against bare skin. You won’t feel yourself a shadow,
          a creature unnamed, something grown crooked,

spine turned curve under the weight of what I am:
          a pillar of salt, maybe, or a faultline. There was a time

when I called myself girl, not oil slick, not burning barn.
         Or, better said, barn-burner. But I’m not to blame

for what darkness does to us. I swear all I wanted was something 
to keep me warm, dark smoke charcoaling the sky.

Despy Boutris's writing has been published or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, AGNI, American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.