Scorched-Earth Policy
Kristin Towe
I remember the night we almost broke-in-two:
outside my window all the world burned orange
and mama had her hands lifted to the heavens
and with a mouthful of ashes, she cried out “fire!”
That was after the wineglass was emptied:
a tiny crystal relic from a thirty-year marriage
a rescued artifact, never before needed to be used,
the word “bride” traced in the white of fresh ash.
However, it was before I found the fork:
near the fire pit, lit by the sun, Poseidon’s trident
rusty, sticking up rod-straight out of a pile of dirt
the American flag, marking the conquest of the universe.
What I saw from my window was a man
who was not afraid to burn.
Everything afterwards looked like this:
Persephone, with hair like fiery ribbons lit with sin,
reached out to Hades, and he took her in his dead arms
and the fire-pit smothered out, and my window darkened
And nothing was orange anymore.
Mama, mama, what compelled daddy to think he could eat the world?
and why, when we had plastic, did he choose silver?
and did he burn it first to swallow quicker?
and why was his glass empty by the door,
while yours sat full and bleeding on the table?