The fire chooses the coastline
because it enjoys its own reflection,
its thousand licking tongues lashing 
across the rippling hips of the sea.
The moon’s borrowed light suddenly 
seems inferior. The fire whispers
to the moon: See how your woman 
writhes for me? The moon sits stoically, 
like a husband, knowing this blast
of passion will pass, that even this luster, 
undeniable in its heat, will be gone
in forty-eight hours, and then
it will be moon and ocean again, sharing 
an early dinner, before he kisses her 
foamy shoulders and rises for work.