The Fire
When a human is asked about a particular fire,
she comes close:
then it is too hot,
so she turns her face—
and that’s when the forest of her bearable life appears,
always on the other side of the fire. The fire
she’s been asked to tell the story of,
she has to turn from it, so the story you hear
is that of pines and twitching leaves
and how her body is like neither—
all the while there is a fire
at her back
which she feels in fine detail,
as if the flame were a dremel
and her back its etching glass.
You will not know all about the fire
simply because you asked.
When she speaks of the forest
this is what she is teaching you,
you who thought you were her master.
Copyright @ 2014 by Katie Ford. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on May 14, 2014.
"A dremel is a tool used for etching and engraving glass. To say more about this poem's content would trespass against the desire of the poem. Despite living in the 'information age,’ this poem wants very badly to say these words and no more."
—Katie Ford
Katie Ford
Katie Ford is the author of If You Have to Go (Graywolf Press, 2018); Blood Lyrics (Graywolf Press, 2014); Colosseum (Graywolf, 2008); and Deposition (Graywolf Press, 2002).
Ford is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Reading Prize. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.