~ Los Angeles, after the January 7th fires
Funny to think how new I felt coming out of class that day,
Flush from the ballet rigors, sweating down the sidewalk—
A manzanita in bloom ready to begin again. I looked to the sky,
To the speaking gull passing, and beyond her an alien
Billowing mouth of dun and charcoal signs. I am remembering
This while fumbling to clasp a bronze bracelet given to me
After because everything was lost, of course, the ungrace
Of this catastrophic state I lean into, searching the singed box
Found in the smoking ruins, sifting for recipes, for favorites
Of ancestors where conversation flows more freely with
The dead. All that I dream, more familiar since flames
Leveled our former life, the taste of newfound nothingness
Rendered sharper by bones, sinew, and cherry port—it rocks me
Gently, this bracing tonic poured over the lot. We visited it
Last night. I watched you walk across like an astronaut sinking
Six feet into ashen muck. I’m walking on the roof! you cried,
Disappearing into morbid glitter, into satin aftermath—moonglow
Sifted over every beautiful thing, a lunar reduction. It looks like
Sunlit snow, said Buzz Aldrin when he first touched boot soles
To it. Your pupils close down, he said. Like layers
Of our lives contracting, we forget what has been, the record
Of the earth. I thought Sometimes the sky’s too bright, then
Everything upside down turns black. How can the moon be shining
If we are standing on it? I asked you, my underworld husband,
My confection. Let’s concentrate on where we are now—
Our cake of ambient people falling through rooms, through years
Collapsed to one luminous moment. I see you in the house,
There in our antique bed, your head between my legs
In the drowsy hours, our children chasing the dog,
Laughing at cartoons wrapped in Saturday morning
And blankets woven by aunties. Now I’m stirring
A kettle of Coq au Vin in my best blue overalls.
The hair at our temples glints of spare gray. Now
I’m watching you pull a cake from the oven,
The steaming gold dome of sherry and nutmeg batter—
It sweetens the rafters worn bare by love and rage.
In the end we found our magnificent desolation
And a way to see the stars through wars,
Through family demons and orbiting fires
The world performs around us on a horizon clearly
Curving away like a smile in an unknown language.
From Ruined Beauty (Walton Well Press 2026) by Michelle Bitting. Copyright 2026 Michelle Bitting. Reprinted with the permission of the author.