The Romeo wasn't prepared to burn.
He didn't know his hands would hang like weights
unsteady at his side like frying pans;
tired of slapping at balloons he lit
his fingers with a borrowed flame and watched
them burn; watched them smolder to the stubs.

The Juliet wore glitter nails and blush.
Her mother dropped her off behind the school
and there the girls lit their thumbs with Anne
Buchowski's brother's Zippo lighter, and
as they burned they squealed nervous bursts at
who might dance with who, and who'd just stand.

But then they didn't speak, so the great love
must need redefining. All night he burned
with Brian Turner and the Dryer twins,
all year he burned in bathroom stalls and lit
his pinkies on the football field, and she
dated Anne Buchowski's brother because
the need to burn and the need to love are
causally linked; human weakness demands
we feel the drag, we scorch our veins, and then
can only beg for something cool to ease
us down. The great love must be compromised,
or else burns itself away on dance floors.

The Romeo is thirty-two and lives
and burns with a dental assistant named
Lauren. He loves her well enough, they smoke
and watch TV, and when he trembles in
his sleep her touch is cool and he can dream
not in color, of passion, but in shades.

The Juliet is married with one kid
in and one on the way. She likes the soaps
on NBC, even thoug they're silly
she knows, and waters a fern named Lacy,
and works part time at the pharmacy,
always noting which of the drugs could kill.

She wonders when she hands them out if she
has ever played a role in suicide,
but she has not, and probably never will.