Remembering Fire

A few months back, when I met Bradley thirty years late, he gently suggested I might want to write about the fires. I wasn't very happy with my first tries (and critiqued one of them here). This is a new attempt, and maybe begins to get at the things I want to get at...

"Quick"

Who found faded yellow,
brown box, jimmied
tin lid with spoon's end
taken from our new
kitchen; the old one
spit out this blackened
package of sugar chocolate
crying for milk, pink bunny
laughing though his ear
had been eaten by flames—
who started it I wonder, who
burned down linoleum-cracked
floor, table where sister choked
on peas like we are choking our
blond baby niece
with mealy brown powder
on a tongue crying
for milk, mama,
milk.

Self-Portrait at Chelsea Gallery, photo by L.L. Barkat.


POETRY FRIDAY:
HighCallingBlogs's Life on the Street
Laura’s I Am the Gate
Nancy’s Our Street
Melissa’s she, stirring
Eric’s Hidden Joy
Jim’s Parables
Susan’s No Fairy Tale
Glynn’s Hope, Blinking and Rues de Martyrs
nAncy’s a road
Dave’s On Quincy Street
Kathleen’s Dear Frankie
Maureen’s Reunions: Father
Marilee’s Laurel Hedge
LL's 56 Irving Place, Gramercy Park
Cindy’s Crossing at Kicker Road
Simple Country Girl’s Street Address: End of Dirt Road and Farm Door Beckons
Liz’s Highway 60
Prairie Chick’s One Country Mile
Linda’s The Farm on Buffalo Ridge
Claire’s Blikkie
Monica’s When He Lived on Horsefly Road
Susanne’s 716 El Rancho Drive
Emily's Stonybrook
Kelly's March on St. June
Missy K's West Washington