Remain
Mornings fell on neighborhoods turned white
grids of ash; the odd surviving objects
like antiquities—a dish intact, a child’s toy—
became remarkable. It was a year of fires
in wine country. Another year burning.
The far land veined with bright, raging bands
that worked a century of dust-
to-dust in a single night. One woman
lived by jumping in a swimming pool,
treading water while the red
and smoke-drowned night
passed over her. Daylight
found the house eaten
and the fire moved on. Her shoes
half-melted on the deck
just cool enough to wedge her feet in.
She walked out into the dawn-lit
flurry of cinder. A naked Eve
in this reverse creation,
the newly unmade world.
Copyright © 2022 by Jennifer Peterson. Published in Banyan Review, issue 15, summer 2023. Reprinted by permission of the poet.