The Fire

Dave Bidini and Martin Tielli

Do you recall the fire? The night when you were sick?
You waved your arms and houted 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 her? 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.
The day exploding night.