You will not write this, the flame said.

I agreed. I would not write this.

My other hands, however, had other eyes and girls.

I want to know the questions, I said to the flame.

You’re made of the answers, it replied.

But I must discover the questions I was made for.

I’ll tell you, but you’ll have to lean close.
The questions must be whispered, said the flame.

And it began to whisper, and I began to lean.

But just as I came close enough to start to decipher the whispers.
The heat would burn my skin and ears.
So I was going back and forth, burning and straining to hear.

I heard ‘your hand’, ‘the sky’. ‘you have to…’ and ‘remember’.

And then the flame drew down, into its roots,
And filled the sky with stars again.