Near Florence
        for Sherry

My niece and her husband lived
in what they called a double-wide,
but what I call a trailer, plopped down
as if by tornado on red dirt
in the middle of loblolly pines.
Though she'd had a good home
and good schooling, she still chose
to marry him, and live amidst
his many third-place motocross trophies.

And so I thought, well,
that's it then.

But when their baby came
I had to see this child
because she bore the blood
of my only sister who'd died young.
So I flew down to Birmingham
and drove two hours towards
"Alabama's Renaissance City"
just to hold her all Saturday afternoon
on a battered couch, watching Batman.

At three I helped him cook "supper,"
watched as he stacked coals, sprayed
lighter fluid, lit them, sprayed more
lighter fluid on the conflagration as I
inched my ass farther up the back steps
so that maybe I wouldn't die in the explosion,
only be maimed, disfigured,
but maybe worth it to incinerate
the idiotic father.

But he brought the "burgers" in safely,
and though I tried to douse the gasoline taste
with ketchup, mustard, onions,
it did no good, and so I ate the raw
and napalmed meat for her, the way
Petrarch kept writing his poems
for Laura even after she was dead,
the way Dante, his love taken
by the slow fire of decay,
fed forever after on the flames.

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from Connecticut River Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission