In the Novel<br /><br />He described her mouth as full of ashes.<br />So when he kissed her finally<br />he was thinking about ashes<br /><br />and the blacker rim just below<br />the edge of the ashtray,<br />and the faint dark rim that outlined her lips,<br /><br />and the lips themselves, at the limit<br />of another darkness, farther<br />and far more interior.<br /><br />Then the way the red,<br />paling, just outside those lines<br />caught fire and the pages caught<br /><br />soon after that. Slowly at first,<br />but then all at once<br />at the scalloped brown corners of each;<br /><br />like the ruff of an offended and darkening bird,<br />extended, then folded<br />in on itself; multiple,<br /><br />stiffening, gone.