Lorna Dowell
Firebreak
Under a cataract moon
I guarded the bonfire:
the shack down the garden
rotted to a tinderbox;
the felled apple tree;
that dining room unit -
several screws missing;
the dog-haired pink carpet,
greasy plinth from the kitchen –
every last scrap of her house,
repossessed, torn out
like months in a diary
we hadn't entered.
Till we got to blank sheets.
Tarpaulin withered
as gold anacondas swallowed
toffee-wedge frames; antlers of flame
popped shots at Formica, until
from the spitting pit rose
yellow angels - all haloes
coaxing logs from their skins,
turning chipboard to paper.
Sheets of ash flew off like crows.
Gone one o'clock, two ….
You'd gone to bed. I waited up
as if watching a fever prevented it
spreading. I waited until
dew chilled the garden,
like baby sweat.
I guarded the bonfire:
the shack down the garden
rotted to a tinderbox;
the felled apple tree;
that dining room unit -
several screws missing;
the dog-haired pink carpet,
greasy plinth from the kitchen –
every last scrap of her house,
repossessed, torn out
like months in a diary
we hadn't entered.
Till we got to blank sheets.
Tarpaulin withered
as gold anacondas swallowed
toffee-wedge frames; antlers of flame
popped shots at Formica, until
from the spitting pit rose
yellow angels - all haloes
coaxing logs from their skins,
turning chipboard to paper.
Sheets of ash flew off like crows.
Gone one o'clock, two ….
You'd gone to bed. I waited up
as if watching a fever prevented it
spreading. I waited until
dew chilled the garden,
like baby sweat.
Lorna Dowell lives and works in Surrey.
Page(s) 33
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