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The Golem Envisions his Origins

8- The Golem and the Witch, Joined in Holocaust

		We are stretched on the straw pallet.
			Like an oven, the stone walls warm
		from the fires outside, all around.

		Her final desire-- to ride
			me within the furnace. Timbers
		collapse, I am coming

		asunder in her hands, clay
			breaking even as the heat hardens
		me inside her inside the kiln.

		She whispers
			spells of ash, of smoke
		blackness, day turning

		night by the pall. Burning
			atop my wattle frame, she
		commands, saying 

		say it, say what is
			under your tongue.
		End this. I obey and summon

		my first, the last
			syllable, the forbidden
		name of my creator

		and together
			we go up
		cleansed from Gehenna.

con't.

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