Had the Blüthner piano not been removed from the Hindenburg to save weight (though it was aluminum custom-made, though hydrogen's a less dense lift-gas than helium), what brief dirge would've mourned the thirty-seven-second burn in its downward blazing? How many leapers, in that half-minute of hammers striking strings, would've stopped short of their vertical drop, followed the float of notes upward to see a fire lighter than air?

No one knows the what-if future; no theory can light the combustible past: sabotage? static spark? puncture? The most abundant element in the universe is flammable, love. Above us I looked before my leaping, you a shadowy ground. Shifting? Last night you let me play "zen" in Scrabble, though the word's a proper noun. Though I didn't let you play "lite."

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While teaching a workshop on the prose poem at the International Women's Writing Guild's annual weeklong summer conference at Skidmore College, I repeatedly remarked how hospitable the prose poem is to a series, and suggested, as an example, the Periodic Table of Elements because a gigantic PTE dominated one of the classroom walls; I encouraged someone, anyone, in the room to take on the project of writing a prose poem for every element. When I returned home from the conference, I said to myself, "You do it, big talker!"