RAG SMELL. FIRE
RAG SMELL. FIRE smell. Bed blacked. Bowl.
The quiet come from living done.
Shadow built the walls, holed and cribbed with light.
Vine felt cracks and fingered in.
Were sky inside
and what the wind-holes left, a wind.
Ay walk the last. What were floor
heaves rock and root.
Flame-eaten walls, rubs of wood,
scraps the burn left licked
now licked with dirt.
Credit
Copyright © 2012 by Joan Houlihan. Used with permission of the author.
Author
Joan Houlihan
Joan Houlihan is the author of Ay (Tupelo Press, 2014), The Us (Tupelo Press, 2009), The Mending Worm (New Issues Press, 2006), and Hand-Held Executions (Del Sol Press, 2003). She currently teaches in Lesley University’s low-residency MFA program and at Clark University. She lives in Massachusetts.
Date Published
08/10/2012