Podcast of "Spontaneous Combustion"

"Spontaneous Combustion" by Anna Evans appears in the 9.4 (Summer 2005) issue of The 2River View. Listen to the poem by clicking the title.

Spontaneous Combustion

The words sound like fireworks.
You imagine rockets, catherine wheels,
flames licking the sky.
You think of a colossus,
blackened and crumbling to ash.

The truth is: the tiniest fleck
of sawdust, or fiber of cotton
sometimes implodes
from the knock-kneed pressure
of its hydrogen bonds.

There's nothing to see.