The Fire Remembers Joan of Arc

by Tom Hunley

I wanted to touch her gently,
and then to enter her—a lover,
I, and all those shepherd boys of Domremy,
I, and all those soldiers fighting for her flag.
“Forgive me, Maid of Orleans,”
I roared before I licked her ankles. “It’s
my nature to destroy the ones
who come too close to me.”

She said “Your flames won’t singe my cross” and held
two twigs against her breast. She said
“a cloud of angels told me so.”
I laughed, a sad, involuntary crackle,
and suddenly she wore the face
of a naive teenage seamstress, not
the mighty visage of the general
who led the charge against the English Lion.

I wrapped around the makeshift cross,
but Saint Joan’s angels told the truth:
her cross stood strong. Joan began to burn,
and she prayed for Bishop Cauchon,
the hypocrite who tried her as a witch.
She prayed for her Dauphin, the spineless man
she crowned. She prayed for England, her enemy
who demanded ransom, for her beloved France
who wouldn’t pay, and for every back-scratching,
courtroom-entrapping, money-grubber in the crowd.

Enraged, I wanted to run through the street, raze
their church, their homes, the entire city of Rouen.
I stayed to touch her gently
and shield her from the crowd.
She shrieked “Don’t think I blame you, Fire.
You can’t help it that you’re so hot,”
and she was right. I couldn’t help myself.
Becoming large, I entered her, ravaged her, loved her.

                                                                                              from Still, There’s a Glimmer


Tom C. Hunley is the husband of Ralaina Ruvalcaba and the father of Evan Joel Ruvalcaba Hunley. He has degrees from Highline Community College (AA), University of Washington (BA), Eastern Washington University (MFA) and Florida State University (Ph.D.), where he was the recipient of a 2002-2003 Kingsbury Fellowship. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Western Kentucky University. Before settling on a career in academia, he worked as a public relations writer, a sportswriter, a technical writer, a warehouseman, a Salvation Army bellringer, an enumerator for the U.S. Census Bureau, a typist, a data entry clerk, a file clerk, a fry cook, a cashier, a dishwasher, night manager of a convenience store, and a canopy construction worker. He is the editor/publisher of Steel Toe Books.