Playing With Matches Poem by Christopher R. Kennedy

I confess I play with matches
I stash them under the fattest pillows
Still they never bloom with yellow fire
For I prefer to count them with an enormous finger
And then name them after Roman gods.

I also run with scissors
And grip them like a sword in my sweat-lathered hands
As I bounce around the endless track
I tend to dropp them somewhere around the mile mark.

I never cough into my hands
Instead I do so in my hat
For I like to see just how many
Strange stares I can earn with
A croupy bark and a withered
Baseball cap.