Home
to a Burning House
When she
got home to a burning house
she stood on the edge of the circle of neighbors,
her face in darkness but for those moments when the fire
leapt from hiding and the yard and street glowed.
She felt the dampness of the milk bottle in the grocery sack,
the hard lumps of the oranges.
Now the
light changes to yellow, both ancient and immature,
and now the red of a heart cut out
that is carried to a living body and sewn back into darkness.
Years building a home and this the color of its strength.
She puts
down the grocery sack,
takes from it a cold apple.
Her daughter comes through the crowd,
her lips bitten, face wet and blotched.
The mother takes the school books from her hands
and replaces them with a stem of grapes.
They stand
close amid their neighbors as
the light goes yellow,
red.
Back
The house
sits on a little hill in the middle
of nowhere. A cloud the size of a house
shows up, the only cloud in the sky.
It works its way over to the house then stops.
After awhile
the house drifts
away. It dwindles to a square,
a point at the horizon. The cloud stays where it is.
It's moved on by morning but by then the house is back.
Copyright © 2001 Glenn Ingersoll
