Shape of Fire
       

Sometimes the fires moved closer to home
        and sometimes spun back to where they began.
                I'd hide us from the fires in a hallway closet

with a book that taught us how to talk
        with our hands: make an a like this, and tomorrow
                like this, and to make the sign for soul

pull an unseen string from one cupped palm.
        When we crawled from our hiding to seek out the souls
                they darted like kites through flammable sky.

Tonight I'll fly home through a wind I won't feel
        or hear through the engines to be with my sister who wept
                in my bedroom when she heard about marks

I'd made on my body. A finger to her lips
        that moves to her chest will be the sign for tell me.
                To tell her I'm sorry I'll take Father's saw

to the side of the highway and cut through the poles
        holding high tension lines. The things I can't live with
                exist in the soil-asleep in thistles and feasting

on seedlings. I've learned to fear the future
        like I've learned to fear the fires that burst
                in the tinder near the fallen wires.

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Copyright © 2013 Brynn Saito All rights reserved
from The Palace of Contemplating Departure
Red Hen Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission