Photo by Jonathan Pendleton on Unsplash
poem: out of the woods
I’ve been standing here so long the leaves have begun to pile up around my feet. In the distance I can hear sirens. Here comes the rain. The sun shines next. How did they know where to go? Maybe they didn’t, those sirens, maybe they were lost, I think they were lost, wailing like that. Maybe that’s what always happens with sirens, they can’t find where they are supposed to go and they wail in fear and sorrow. Nobody gets helped, the fire burns down the house, the ill do not get taken to the hospital but either recover or die all on their own. The suspects get clean away, they go into the basement and start counting their take. Someone has to deal with the corpse though. They have a designated corpse handler, I suspect. They laugh at all those wailing sirens. They get into fights over how to divide up the drugs and money, but there’s nobody to call. Some of them kill each other, which is probably a good thing, or at least some people would think so. Not their mothers though. Well, not most of their mothers. The mean mothers are glad. The mean mothers are the ones who made sure the instructions were wrong and the maps broken so the sirens could never get where they meant to go in the first place. So those particular mothers sigh, smile at each other, brush their hands together, go back into their several kitchens, make a gin and tonic (light on the tonic, dear) and relax. What is that? Oh! the birds have started finding my hair and I think there are leaves budding out and that’s a good thing, it will help hide me. Even though the sirens can’t find me, I am still afraid my mother will. I may stay here. Why not? I am hidden real well now, and the squirrels have started bringing me nuts. Look. A bird places a morsel in my mouth. I know I will not starve. One day I will leave the woods, but not today.
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BURNING HOUSE PRESS 