The Fire

You recall the fire

Night when you were sick

Waved your arms and shouted to your father "fire quick"

Won your first reward

The salty stinging sweet of sugar sores

That house is where we lived

'Til 1986

I'd surfed on waves of apprehension

Ameliorate the wind

Apologize for snow

I am the place where the winter hates go

The jagged sandy breeze

The insects sucking trees

The cigarette blood peach red camper van

You're going nowhere

No one saw me leave

When I was twenty-three

I left for reasons almost spoiled by telling everyone

The windows were its eye

The sound of TV talking

Suffocating mother's cries

I will not be told

Exploited, tricked or sold

You'll burn before I'm old

I'm a tree that poisons paper

I'm a river that is angry as it's wide

Is there nothing left to save here?

And will we ever know until it...

I made the journey home

The house, sad as it was

I wrenched the sill and raked the vinyl

Rough and weathered door

The cellar drunk on fuel

The smoke that rose like silver threading spools

I hate the way you live

(I watch domestic dreams)

I hate the way you are

(I hate the things you think)

I walked into the flowering fire from side to side in flames

(Side to side in flames)

Beyond your warmest wall

(Your warmest wall)

The floor consumed the walls that made the sky

The orange of the light

The sepulchral white

When day explodes the night

I'm a tree that poisons paper

I'm a river that is angry as it's wide

Is there nothing left to save here?

And will we ever know until it dies?

You're going nowhere

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a

I'm a tree that poisons paper