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
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