Bio
Lois Elaine Heckman grew up in Los Angeles, receiving a degree in Italian from UCLA. She has lived for many years as an expat in Milan, Italy, becoming a volunteer nurse and first aid instructor for the Italian Red Cross. Her works have appeared in The Shine Journal, The Fib Review, Short, Fast, and Deadly, and Boston Literary Magazine, and will be forthcoming soon in Pemmican. She is the proud winner of the 2010 New England Shakespeare Festival Rubber Ducky Sonnet Contest.
Lois Elaine Heckman
Futility
As a parasite can interlock,
stealing life from the body it inhabits,
only to perish along with its host,
unbridled desire is like flames
rising from underneath,
licking the log above, embracing it
until they have their way,
and the wood gives up, consumed,
collapsing into cinders,
condemning the fire's life to termination
in the dust of its victim's ashes.