Lizzy Burnam 🐞

To be loved 
says Betty (who laughs 
at fire, smoke and gun) 
is to have no fear—
faces flushed with blood, 
red as the head of a match, 
don’t care if ya burn! 

To be loved 
says Emily (still learning 
what her lips are for) 
is to have lived—
like a whip of flame 
under the slow rhythm
of the moon

To be loved 
says the reaper (soft-
spoken as a shadow)
is to make a widow of a wife—
that wild night
still throbs, a hot coal
as the dear heart slows