FIRE PAINTS ITSELF

WILLIAM EMERY

he salvaged what house doors he could and set them

against the rib wood beams of the sliding door shed

for wasps to hang their paper cities from and mud

daubers their fortresses in an idiot tic of farmer thrift

or botched attempt at redemption the winged and stinged gleaned benefit

although an oblong mawed saw handle could have as easily been the lebanon cedars

for all they cared grandpa mortared a tin paneled and tar

roofed trailer onto a corner of the foundation of the house that burned

making xanthic the interior with the sable brush of his exhale

in the patio he put through soil evergreen and burning bush

where in the open air the robber flies copter their wasp kill

he made a world of action in which his grandchildren moved as a world of item

pearl button shirts a black

forest clock with bronze pine

cone weights mentholated cough

drops in jars an elephant gun

his remnant features at the evergreen he died

although paramedics undid that and the hospital got him

the petiole that connects the wasp to itself and he to me

what is the clay that makes the bricks bright as a redbud

against the skein of evil days in the conflagration of our blood

∘∘∘