Burning a Bible While You Are In A Combat Zone

Forgive me—its thin pages
were ravaged by mold and damp
from the poorly packed moving box
where it splayed like a fish freshly filleted.
It seemed a sacrilege to cloister sacred words
with banana peels and heels of stale bread.

No point to give it away, the cracked spine
leaking pages from Leviticus, margin notes
bled blue into the metaphors of Isaiah.
Reluctantly I strike a match. Like a prayer
it flares, begins a slow lick, takes its time.
Pages stuck together resist

in a smolder along gilded edges
so I stir and prod to let in oxygen, purifying fire.
Onion skin paper burns quicker than ink—
“As I have loved you” shimmers in the dark,
“Holy” outlasting the page gone to ash,
a glowing brand marking us forever.

I am sad to see Song of Solomon consumed.
There are those in favor,
believing the flames on those pages
should have been extinguished
long ago, but I quite like the apples,
the honey, the banner over me being love.

Revelation – you should end in fire,
in a glorious crown of sparks
ever expanding, rising on thermals
of your dire proclamations.
It doesn’t seem fair to Ruth though,
or Mary and the infant Jesus

joined in conflagration
with Moses and Pharaoh,
Canaanite and Israelite,
Pharisee and Philippian,
Jew and Gentile, all amber glitter
lifted together into the night sky—

my offering on an altar of fire
for your return home from the battlefield,
the Bible you carry under your arm intact.