We needed
fire
to feed our
young minds
so we took an
axe,
to the
Alabama woods
and hacked
fallen oak
til our blisters bled,
but we were no
boy scouts.
With a
starter log,
we began the burning
but were taken aback
by how fast the forest
closed in on our
campsite
as the sky darkened.
The fire grew as it fed—
We rose from rusty
lawnchairs
to hurl
limb after limb,
sculpting the flicker
into a mighty
flame.
We stared at each other,
our eyes flashing,
not
faces of wonder,
but
faces of hunger.
For hours we fed it,
as the fire grew larger,
licking out beyond
its stone
enclosure.
We didn’t know
how to
make it die,
this thing we had spawned,
or how little it cared
for its makers.
And when the profits of our
axework
were spent, we went home
and watched
TV.
How could we have known
that the frame of that old house
on
Route 402—
our
guilty secret—
was the grave of that girl
we saw on the
milk carton,
or how the burning roof
had caved in as she
cowered,
like loose sand through fingers?