Danger House

We sat in the car in the driveway and ash rained down.
Across town a stroke ripped through a man I knew, then
Another. A woman I knew fled her house with a box
Of books. The west-facing treetrunks glowed white
Like cigarette paper. The horizon’s steady fringe of brush
Marked time, there should’ve been a drum song.
There was nothing to do but wait. No electricity,
No wifi. We had packed bags, but if the fire came,
It would already be too late. The parrots in cages,
The dogs: we’d have to set them free and hope
They made it somewhere safe. The hotels open to pets
Were evacuating. We survived a flood here, we’d
Survive anything, maybe, but is fire worse? It leaves
Nothing. The ash fluttering the windshield was a house
Down the road. Nobody wants to think about secrets
Wafting out of somebody’s library, their closet,
Liberated from their material form into this looseness
Floating darkly across, and the timber clattering
From pecan trees in the high winds, a clustered beating
We’d spend weeks clearing from the ground while
Tall grass grew around it, we couldn’t mow until
It was gone. I’m reaching ahead to the all-over
And how we found out about it, donated what
We could afford, what if it happened to us
And of course it had but we had mud, not vapor.
Not flame. In the aftermath the guy with the strokes
Has experienced a miraculous recovery, according to
His physician. It is, indeed, possible to get better,
Even when everything is gone or could be, baby
Pictures, art collection, grand piano, manuscript.
Even broken synapses can be restored. I imagine
Fitting torn ends together just so. What does it take?
The landscape sparks its own arson from drought
And wind. All it takes for flood is more water from above.
All the water at once, which could’ve drenched the fire
And saved the houses where we drove weeks later,
The black bones of chimneys, scavengers gathering
Shattered windows and bricks. The mourning there
So ripe it stank. The burned groves will be rebuilt.
It will take years, and everyone who returns to sleep
There will know as we know. Whenever it rains, or
Whenever the hot winds carry sparks. All you really have
Then is luck, and afterwards if it’s only bad, you’ll always
Think it was your fault somehow, ignoring the dangers.
Of course you did, but you have to live somewhere,
You wanted to hold to hope in the beautiful country
And take the chance it would stand through every storm.

Your Fault

A spot of shame on the collar of a favorite shirt.

What spilled? Some task left incomplete. Missed deadline,
miscarriage, injustice unpunished.

I notice leaves browning on the thrust-out limb
of the pecan tree we call Middle Sister.

Is it my fault? The sun’s fault? The fault of years?
Everyone I meet tells me how tired they are.

How rushed. I notice a spot of shame,
a circle of doubt, held hands.

Hands clasped behind backs, I shouldn’t look.

The book I ordered about floodproofing
was published in the U.K. Here,

eons of starfish and umbilical anemones
away, it’s only a matter of argument

and methane flares. It will happen again.
The best hope is to be dead and gone first.

If we flew up into the sky this very second,
we’d turn in a balloon of dream perspective

above a grid of land that looks cough-dry
forever. Every little thing we all did wrong,

all our selfish travels, added up to this.

So it is my fault. The cloud of shame expands
and floats to obscure hope. Your fault too.

And yours. And yours. And yours.
Examine your cuffs where you didn’t even see

what you dragged your wrist into.
Staying busy entertaining yourself, making talk

that could almost fly the world.

Lisa Lewis has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Taxonomy of the Missing (WordWorks, 2018) and a chapbook, The Borrowing Days (Emrys, 2021). A ninth collection titled Present and Future Storm is forthcoming from WordWorks. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in New Letters, Puerto del Sol, Cream City Review, North American Review, Agni, Cloudbank, and elsewhere. She teaches in the creative writing program at Oklahoma State University and serves as editor-in-chief of the Cimarron Review.