The Great Big Burn
The night split open with a sound like a slammed door that never stopped slamming
Smoke climbed the walls like it had been waiting for years to stretch its arms
We stood barefoot on the lawn grass cold as questions watching our windows turn to mirrors and then to mouths of light
The fire did not roar at first it hummed low, almost thoughtful as if deciding what to keep
It kept nothing
Photographs curled into black leaves birthday cards became brief constellations the couch where we fell asleep on Sundays sighed into sparks
Everything we owned rose into the air at once not floating not flying just leaving
Sirens painted the street red and blue but the flames made their own weather their own sky their own ending
In the morning there was no house only a charcoal outline and the quiet shock of space where walls used to be
We sifted through ash like archaeologists of ourselves finding a spoon a hinge a single porcelain knob still cool enough to hold
People says things are just things they are wrong things are the shape of our days they are the background buzz of being alive
But here is what the fire could not carry the way we know each other’s footsteps the story behind every scar the memory of how the kitchen smelled when it rained
We lost the roof we lost the frames we lost the boxes of winter and summer
But we did not lose the small, stubborn pulse that says build again
Even in ash even in the great big burn there is a place where something refuses to go out
