The Fire - Rheostatics

Do you recall the fire? The night when you were sick?

You waved your arms and shouted to your father, «Fire, quick!»

You won your first reward, the salty singing sweet of sugar sores

That house is where we lived till 1986

I’d surfed on waves of apprehension. Ameliorate the wind

Apologize for snow. In the place where winter has to go

The jagged sandy breeze. The insect sucking trees

The cigarette butt beach rat camoputer van. (You're going nowhere.)

I left at 23 to be whom I might be

I left for reasons almost spoiled by telling stupid lies

The window showed his eyes

The sound of TV, talking suffocating mother’s cries…

Now I will not be told. Exploited, tricked, or sold

You’ll burn before I’m old

I’m a tree that poisons paper. I’m a river that is angry as it’s wide

Is there nothing left to save here? Will we ever know until it dies?

I made the journey home. The house sat as it was

I wrenched the sill and raped the vinyl. A rough and weathered door

The cellar drunk on fuel

The smoke that rose like silver threading spool

I hate the way you live. (I watched the match-stick breathe.)

And all you failed to give. (And all you failed to see.)

I walked into the flowering fire from side to side to side it swayed

Beyond the warmest warm the ceiling kisses the walls that kissed the floor

The orange of the light. The sepulchral white

When day explodes the night