Steven Knepper

Sterno
 
Napalm for caterers, a little can
of Molotov, you are the sick pink gel
at cocktail parties underneath each pan.
 
When all the high-tech therapeutics fail
in Crichton’s book about an alien
disease, you are the cure. An old, unwell
 
man slurps you down, survives the pathogen.
In real life you’re an addict’s tragedy,
a fix that blinds, that does the drinker in.
 
Before the chic outdoors economy,
when cheap was good, you were one of the ways
a frugal camper warmed an MRE.
 
I spent a boyhood’s worth of deer stand days
warmed at your flame, a votive for St. Blaze.

Steven Knepper edits New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, Think, Pulsebeat, Trampoline, Blue Unicorn, and The Colosseum.