Steven Minchin’s most recent poem to appear here was “. . . Vice Verses Who?” (October 2019).

96th Testimony to Everafter
By Steven Minchin

I have the spark

the wild infant edition
interlocked with the unholy
and incomplete
I wear it out
when hunting down
ignition and when
engulfed in regression

I spark

a new wanton fire to singe
and mare an old forever
industrialized and hot
infantile and never ending
illuminated and backed by
an exasperating everafter
a new wick waiting

I have the spark