Juliet and Fire   And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excused.   V.iii   The arrival of a tedious afternoon of low intent is a boon for Juliet because it is perfectly suited for fire,   which she and her friend raise behind the fence from sullen sticks of weeds,   bits of shirts, shreds of school papers, grayed Popsicle sticks, and their hair as tinder,   which they light with a practiced flourish from flattened, well-secreted matches.   They urge the fire on with phlegmy incantations, shrilly whispers, syllables glutted with vowels howled at various pitches and oscillations,   until the embers bloom into glowing fissures into which Juliet sends her eye as a spelunker   twisting through a phosphorescent Eden as if she could enter the brightest mouth and not return.     Copyright Nancy Taylor Everett